Antakya: Christian Atsu, the Ghana international forward who played for Premier League clubs Chelsea and Newcastle, has died in the earthquake in Turkey. He was 31.
Search teams recovered Atsu’s body in the ruins of a luxury 12-story building where he had been living in the city of Antakya, Hatay province, his manager said Saturday. “Atsu’s lifeless body was found under the rubble. At the moment, his belongings are still being removed,” manager Murat Uzunmehmet told private news agency DHA.
Atsu joined Turkish club Hatayspor in September and scored the winning goal for his new team in a league game at home against Kasimpasa S.K. on Feb. 5, just hours before the earthquake struck in the pre-dawn hours of Feb. 6. Antakya, the city where Hatayspor is based, is in the southern region of Turkey hardest hit by the earthquake.
Hatayspor said Atsu’s body was being repatriated to Ghana.
“There are no words to describe our sadness,” the club tweeted. A day after the earthquake there were reports that Atsu had been rescued but Hatayspor, after initially announcing that it had received information that
Atsu was alive and on his way to the hospital, said later that the reports of a successful rescue were, heartbreakingly,
mistaken and the player was still missing.