4 British pilgrims killed in Saudi road crash

Wednesday 25th April 2018 06:27 EDT
 
 

Riyadh: Four British pilgrims were killed and 12 others were injured when the coach in which they were travelling was hit by a fuel tanker in Saudi Arabia. According to Hashim Travel, the truck then caught fire, setting the bus alight. A woman in her 60s from Blackburn, Lancashire, an elderly woman and her adult son, from Preston, Lancashire, and an elderly man, also from Preston, died in the crash near the town of Al Khalas, about 30 miles north of Mecca.

The coach had 18 people on board and was travelling from Mecca to Medina when the collision took place on Saturday. A spokesman for the Foreign Office said the department was supporting the families of the victims. Passengers on the bus were from Birmingham, Accrington, Wolverhampton and Northampton, as well as Blackburn and Preston. The passengers were on an Umrah pilgrimage, an Islamic journey to Mecca.

The travel firm’s director Gulfaraz Zaman said: “The coach driver said they were travelling in the opposite direction to the petrol tanker when a car overtook the tanker and he had to move in to the side of the road a little to let it through but then the petrol tanker hit the coach which caught fire.”

The Saudi Arabia embassy in London said in a statement that it "was working with (Britain's) Foreign Office to issue emergency visas immediately to both the relatives of the four pilgrims who died as well as to families of the 12 British pilgrims who were injured".


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