Welcome to this special documentary, Middix, with me Zayna Bedawi here on the BBC World Service.

Adele and I go back a long way. We came to the UK around the same time in the very early 90s and we both took different paths, but we maintain close close ties. He was like my old brother, he was like my mentor. He was a

confidant for me in many ways. Adil Alta Yl altejah died of COVID-19 on March 25th.

He was the first hospital doctor to die in the UK of the virus.

Adil was my cousin.

I was born in the Sudan, but I've lived in the UK since I was an infant.

I have a large extended family here who have arrived in more recent decades

and I've lost count of the number of my relatives working as doctors in Britain, including another

cousin, Hisham Al-Qedir, who was very close to Adil.

Adil was admitted on a Friday to hospital and that was the last time I had spoken to him

on the Saturday he was ventilated and unfortunately he passed away on

Wednesday. How did you feel when you heard the news of his death,

Hisham? I was devastated.

Absolutely devastated. I'd been talking to his family a few hours prior.

I'd spoken to the ITU consultant on that day about his progress.

We put a plan of what we were going to do in the next two or three days and we were going to revisit the plan within 48 hours.

I put the phone down and an hour later his son called me and said that his father had died.

Adil had turned 64 on his sick bed and had died soon after his birthday. He left behind a wife and four children, two of them doctors like him in the NHS.

Adil had been self isolating at home the week before and Hisham had been calling him every

night to find out what his symptoms were and how he was feeling.

I kept on telling him that he needs to go to hospital, but he said

that he has a fever and the advice would be for him to self-isulate at home and take

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