Herbert Mensah leads walk to remember the Accra Stadium Disaster 23 years on

Former Kumasi Asante Kotoko Chairman, Herbert Mensah, led multitudes of Ghanaians on Saturday, May 11, 2024, through the principal streets of Kumasi to mark 23 years since the Accra Sports Stadium Disaster.

The disaster, which occurred on May 9, 2001, claimed the lives of more than 126 Ghanaian soccer fans during a league game between Ghana’s two leading soccer clubs; Accra Hearts of Oak and Kumasi Asante Kotoko.

The walk saw the participation of various keep-fit clubs, survivors of hole-in-heart disease, random Ghanaians, as well as members of the physically disabled society.

The May 9 Accra Stadium Disaster remains one of the tragic occurrences in the history of African football.

At the time, Herbert Mensah was the chairman of Asante Kotoko, who was well-celebrated by the club’s fans and owners for his dynamic and charismatic leadership of the club.

He physically participated in conveying dead soccer fans and rescuing surviving fans on the evening of the Accra Stadium Disaster.

Since then, Mensah has founded a charity organization known as the May 9 Foundation that has championed support and assistance for families and victims of the Accra Stadium Disaster.

More recently, the May 9 Foundation joined hands with the Shen Yang and Shen Yuet Children’s Heart Foundation to assist families whose children suffer from hole in heart disease to access expensive surgical operations, which these families otherwise could not afford.

The Heart Foundation is founded by Y.C Shen, the Chinese business Mogul operating in Ghana as head of the SUNDA group.

Speaking of the transitional progress made by the May 9 Foundation over the years, Herbert Mensah told Ghanaians, "In the last year, we have teamed up with the Shen Yang Children’s Heart Foundation of which I am the secretary, and whose founder, YC Shen, an extraordinary man from China, has invested so much in the heart surgeries of more than 25 children at the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital under the guidance of Dr. Kow Entsua Mensah of the National Cardiothoracic Centre in Accra, and in the process, we have saved the lives of many children, although some could not make it."

After the street walk, Herbert Mensah led some of the families and their children who had successfully recovered from the hole in heart surgeries to pay a visit to the Asantehene, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, who is the life patron of Kumasi Asante Kotoko, and who is currently celebrating 25 years as King of the Asante Kingdom.

AE