Saudi man donates kidney to best friend without telling him

Dubai: Without telling a soul, not even the recipient, Shaaker Al Otaibi made a decision that would change a life forever. The Saudi man quietly donated one of his kidneys to his best friend of 17 years, Fahad, who had been battling end-stage kidney failure for years.

The act only came to light when Al Otaibi appeared on the television programme Sabah Al Arabiya. There, he revealed that Fahad had remained unaware of the donor’s identity until after the transplant.

“I just wanted to save his life,” Al Otaibi said. “When we learned that our tissue matched, I took it as a sign and moved forward.”

Their friendship, forged nearly two decades ago, had survived time, distance, and the toll of chronic illness.

But it was this gesture, one done without fanfare or expectation, that turned personal devotion into a national conversation about organ donation and the meaning of true friendship.

Saudi Arabia has seen a significant uptick in live organ donations in recent years. In 2024 alone, 1,706 live donor transplants were recorded, a 4.9 per cent increase over the previous year, according to the Saudi Centre for Organ Transplantation. Of those, 1,284 were kidney donations, while 422 involved partial liver donations.

The Kingdom now ranks third globally in the number of live organ donors, according to the Global Observatory on Donation and Transplantation (GODT).

“I didn’t want praise or recognition,” Al Otaibi said. “I just wanted my friend back.”