MAHD AL-DHAHAB – Five Umrah pilgrims died and 12 others, including the Saudi driver, sustained injuries Wednesday evening when a bus overturned on its way to Makkah from Mahd Al-Dhahab, some 165 km south of Madinah. The accident took place at Al-Kamil governorate near the holy city. The fatalities included four Bangladeshis and an Indian. The injured passengers were shifted to different hospitals. One serious case was airlifted to King Abdul Aziz Hospital by medevac plane. Three pilgrims in critical state were admitted to the Intensive Care Unit at Hera Hospital while the rest were being treated at King Faisal Hospital. Sheikh Hassaan Al-Tayar, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Office for Call, Guidance and Awareness Among Communities in Mahd Al-Dhahab, said his office had arranged the Umrah trip for the foreign workers, most of them new converts to Islam. All the passengers were Bangladeshi and Indian nationals. Meanwhile, four people died inside their cars in Taif when a driver swerved off the road and crashed into a car coming from the opposite direction on Thursday. The occupants of both cars became trapped in the vehicles, which caught on fire. Rescue workers removed the charred bodies from the site of wreckage, said Maj. Gen. Ali Al-Malki, spokesman for Taif Traffic Administration. In yet another road accident on Thursday, a 25-year-old woman died and her father sustained severe injuries when their car crashed into a street light in Najran.
