24 Bangladeshis injured in Riyadh airport attack: Embassy

Two Bangladeshi nationals have died and 24 others were wounded after a missile hit King Khalid International Airport in the Saudi capital, Riyadh. The Bangladesh Embassy in Riyadh confirmed this on Sunday night (11 October). Of the injured Bangladeshis, 11 are migrant workers and 13 are Umrah pilgrims.

According to the embassy, the missile landed on Terminal 3 at around 3:15 am in the early hours of Sunday, after Saturday night. Passengers from Bangladesh and several other countries were caught in the strike. Preliminary figures put the overall toll at 12 dead and 309 injured. All the injured Bangladeshis had been waiting in transit at the airport for connecting flights to Jeddah.

Three of the wounded are in the intensive care unit of King Abdullah Hospital, though the embassy says their condition is stable. They are Hafez Hasan from Dhaka, Kazi Nurullah from Brahmanbaria and Md. Omar Faruk, a Saudi-based worker. An embassy delegation visited them in hospital. Another patient, Safkat Rahman of Naogaon, being treated at National Guard Hospital, remains unconscious.

The remaining injured are scattered across hospitals in Riyadh, including Riyadh Medical Hospital, Prince Sultan Military Hospital, Kingdom Hospital, King Khalid Medical City and Prince Mohammed bin Abdulaziz Hospital. Embassy officials say they are in constant touch with the hospital authorities about the patients’ treatment.

The attack also stranded around 500 Bangladeshi passengers, some bound for or travelling through Riyadh and others waiting to fly home. The embassy arranged accommodation and meals for 100 of them at the Marriott and Radisson hotels and in a dormitory at Princess Nourah University. These passengers had arrived on Saudia, Riyadh Air and US-Bangla flights, or were awaiting onward domestic flights on flynas, flyadeal and Riyadh Air.

Sixty-seven Umrah pilgrims, still in ihram garments, were sent on to Jeddah by special bus. About 400 passengers from Saudia’s cancelled flight SV-804 to Dhaka are being brought home via King Fahd International Airport in Dammam. The embassy also helped two Bangladeshi workers bound for Bahrain cross by land through the Al Khobar border.