Saudi Arabia announced a three-year travel ban and strict penalties on travellers who visit Saudi Arabia’s red-list countries due to the Covid-19, including India.
Whoever violates the travel prohibition will be slapped with hefty penalties and banned for three years from travelling abroad, an unverified source was quoted by PTI, a news agency.
“Travelling to the banned countries is an obvious violation of Covid-19-related travel restrictions and the Kingdom’s updated instructions,” an official source on July 27 was quoted as stating.
A report by the state-run Saudi Press Agency (SPA) indicated that an official at the Saudi Ministry of the interior had alerted Saudi nationals against travelling to nations that are listed on the no-travel list by the Saudi Arabia authorities due to the recent surge in the Covid-19 cases and its Delta variants.
The ministry called on citizens against travelling directly or indirectly to the red-list countries where the coronavirus pandemic has not yet been controlled, and there is a surge in cases of mutated strains of SARS-CoV-2, the Khaleej Times report stated.
Requesting the citizens of Saudi Arabia, the ministry instructed them to take caution and stay away from regions where instability prevails, or the virus is spreading rapidly and exercising all preventive measures regardless of their destination.
The red-listed countries list includes the United Arab Emirates, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Iran, Turkey, Armenia, Lebanon, Ethiopia, Somalia, Congo, Venezuela, Belarus, Vietnam, India and Afghanistan.
As of July 27, Saudi Arabia recorded 1,379 new Covid-19 infections, taking its overall tally to 5,20,774, and its death tally has risen to 8,189 with ten more new deaths.
