The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia imposed a three-year ban on travel for citizens who visit countries to which “instructions prohibit travel” in light of the continuing outbreak of the Corona pandemic and the spread of a new mutated strain of the virus.
On Tuesday, the Saudi Press Agency, quoting an official source in the Ministry of Interior, said that some Saudi citizens who were allowed in May to travel abroad without prior permission from the authorities for the first time since March 2020 violated the travel rules.
Hold the Saudis involved in travel accountable
The source added: “Anyone who is proven to be involved in this will be subject to legal accountability and severe penalties upon his return, and he will be banned from traveling outside the Kingdom for a period of three years.”
The official said: “The Ministry of Interior assures all citizens of the continued ban on travel, whether directly or through another country, to the declared countries, and any other countries in which the pandemic has not yet been controlled or the mutated strain of the virus has been proven to spread.”
The UAE is among the banned countries
Saudi Arabia has banned travel to or transit through a number of countries, including Afghanistan, Argentina, Brazil, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Lebanon, Pakistan, South Africa, Turkey, Vietnam and the United Arab Emirates.
Saudi Arabia, the largest Gulf country with an estimated population of 30 million, recorded today, Tuesday, 1,379 new cases of Covid-19, bringing the total number of infections to 520,774 and deaths to 8,189.
