SIX BRITISH NATIONALS have been killed and several more injured in a road crash in Saudi Arabia.
“We are supporting the families of six British people who have sadly died following a road accident in Saudi Arabia,” a Foreign Office spokeswoman said.
“We are also helping several more British nationals who were injured in the crash,” she said, without specifying how many.
Glasgow Central Mosque released a statement naming two of the victims as Glasgow couple Mohammad Aslam and Talat Aslam, who have five children, saying they had just completed umra, a pilgrimage to Mecca, Islam’s holiest site.
They “were travelling in a minibus” to Medina, it said, adding:
Four members of another family from Manchester were also killed in the tragedy.
A spokesperson for the tour operator told the Guardian the group had been on a package tour for Muslims wishing to go on a pilgrimage to Mecca. They had been travelling in a 14-seater Toyata Hiace.
Every year, millions of Muslims flock to Mecca and Medina further south, Islam’s second holiest site, to carry out the annual hajj pilgrimage or the umra.
In 2015, more than 2,000 worshippers performing hajj were crushed to death in Mecca, in the worst disaster ever to strike the annual ritual.
© – AFP, 2017 with reporting by Daragh Brophy
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