Lives Lost: Sudan-born doctor saw himself as ordinary Briton

LONDON (AP) — During a pandemic, heroes wear scrubs.

Amged El-Hawrani was one of them, a doctor who went to work every day as the coronavirus took hold even though he might be exposed, risking his own life to treat patients at a hospital in central England.

The 55-year-old died on March 28, becoming one of the first doctors in Britain’s National Health Service to succumb to COVID-19 and a symbol of the acute danger all health workers brave.

Yet in life, he shunned attention, and would have been embarrassed to be described as a hero, according to his youngest brother, Amal.

“He would kind of nervously laugh or brush it off as people over-exaggerating,’’ Amal said. “He would say to you, `I’m just doing my job.‴

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EDITOR’S NOTE: This is part of an ongoing series of stories remembering people who have died from coronavirus around the world.

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Amged El-Hawrani never saw himself as extraordinary.

Born in Sudan as the second of six brothers, he told friends about a carefree childhood in Africa, memories of playing soccer in the family's yard before his father, a radiologist, sought a new life for his family in the U.K..

It was before the era of mass immigration to Britain, and the El-Hawrani brothers found they often were the only non-white children starting out in their new neighborhood in Taunton, a large town in western England, and other places they moved.

That didn’t trouble Amged, who was 11 when they arrived. He considered himself as British as tea and crumpets.

“I don’t think he looked at himself and said that I’m different than everyone else,″ his brother Amal said. ``He was just a kid in a school, and he was very, very strong, very confident, and never let anything worry him or make him doubt himself. He just always...