and Abdullah Al-Abdali Okaz/Saudi Gazette JEDDAH — A pupil died of suffocation after being trapped in school bus for six hours on Sunday. Eight-year-old Nawaf Al-Silmy was a second grade student in a private school in Al-Faiha District. On Sunday, he got into the school bus with his brother Talal who is in middle school. At the school, Nawaf did not get down from the bus. The driver locked the bus without any crosscheck and left, said Nawaf's uncle Majed Al-Silmy. Nawaf remained locked in the bus for six hours. When Talal came out of his class at the end of the school day he found students and teachers gathered around the school bus. A teacher gave Talal Nawaf's backpack, shoes and glasses and told him to tell his parents that Nawaf has been transported to the hospital. Talal was not even given an explanation of what happened to his brother, said Al-Silmy. Nawaf was found dead in the bus at the end of the school day, he said. "We demand that the school be penalized for its negligence. We blame the school and the Ministry of Education for the incident and are expecting serious action against the school," said Al-Silmy. Jeddah Education Directorate spokesman Abdulmajeed Al-Ghamdi said the Minister of Education is following up on the investigation into the incident. "The directorate has formed a committee to look into the incident. The police have arrested the bus driver and are currently interrogating him. It was the driver, a 36-year-old Arab expatriate, who found the boy's body before it was transported to the hospital where paramedics declared him dead," said Al-Ghamdi. In October last year, six-year-old Abdul Malik Al-Awad died when he was left in the school bus by the driver. The Ministry of Education temporarily shut down the school.
