11 injured in Mecca road collision

Cairo: Eleven people were injured in a traffic collision in the Saudi holy city of Mecca, medics said.

The accident occurred on the city’s Haramein road Thursday in the direction of the Red Sea city of Jeddah, the Red Crescent Authority said.

Six ambulance teams were sent to the site where 11 people were found injured, including one seriously.

An air ambulance transferred the seriously injured to the King Fahd Hospital in Jeddah while the 10 others were taken to hospitals in Mecca, the Red Crescent added.

Neither the circumstances of the mishap nor the nature of the injuries was immediately clear.

In recent months, Saudi media reported several deadly accidents.

Earlier this week, a car collision in Al Baha, in south-western Saudi Arabia, left one expatriate dead and four Saudis injured.

Also in the same city, three Saudis died and three others were injured in a separate accident.

The dead were employees of the Saudi Ministry of Islamic Affairs where they worked as muezzins or the persons who recite the call to Islamic prayer.

Last month, a female schoolteacher was killed and five others injured in a road crash while they were on their way to their school in the city of Yanbu in western Saudi Arabia.

In May, a bus carrying university students collided with a car in the central city of Buraidah, leaving one female student dead and 24 others injured.

In March, 21 Umrah pilgrims were killed and 29 others injured when their bus turned over in the south-western Asir region.

In recent years, Saudi authorities have toughened penalties against traffic offences to reduce road crashes. Traffic fatalities in the kingdom have dropped by around 35 per cent in five years from 2016.