Two malaria-sick Mini Football players of the Libyan national team were escorted off a government-funded ambulance plane on Wednesday and replaced by two "elites": A Libyan-British citizen named Macenesa Gnan, son of a Parliament member and Central Bank of Libya Governor's advisor, Salim Gnan, and an air ambulance pilot named Rafea Bayo.
The two Mini Football players, Wissam Al-Hijazi, and Rabie Al-Arabi, contracted malaria in Nigeria as the Libyan National team was taking part in the African Mini Football Cup. One player, Ayman Al-Nagrish, died of malaria.
On Thursday, Prime Minister Abdul-Hamid Dbeibah orderd Health Minister Ali Al-Zanati to probe the incident of replacing the two players on the ambulance plane by two persons who have nothing to do with the team, adding that a report of the details must be field in two days.
Social media users, activists, journalists, rights bodies' workers and ordinary people all lashed out at the utter inhumane act of the two nepotism passengers and blamed the air ambulance apparatus for allowing this farce to go through.
The air ambulance apparatus said the two players had "no permission for travel and one of them tested positive for Coronavirus, adding that the two controversial passengers had prior tickets on the ambulance plane and they were approved by authorities which use this procedure to help Libyans go to Europe amid the European flights' ban on Libya.
Meanwhile, the Libyan Attorney General ordered the Chief of the Libyan Mini Football Federation to remain in police custody for interrogation regarding the malaria issue of the national team players, citing negligence and mismanagement on the Chief's side.
Al-Siddiq Al-Sour ordered investigations into the reasons behind the incident to bring to justice the ones responsible for such negligence.