COVID-19: Saudi Arabia Bans Citizens From Traveling To 16 Countries Including India

New Delhi: Saudi Arabia has banned its citizens from travelling to sixteen countries, including India owing to the re-outbreak of COVID-19.

According to Gulf News, the sixteen countries where the citizens of Saudi Arabia are banned to travel apart from India include Lebanon, Syria, Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia, Ethiopia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Libya, Indonesia, Vietnam, Armenia, Belarus, and Venezuela.

Reportedly, the ban was imposed after the Saudi authorities observed a consistent increase in the number of daily COVID-19 cases in the previous weeks.

The Saudi government has emphasized in its order that the validity of the passport of such Saudi people who want to travel to non-Arab countries should be more than 6 months.

The statement further said that the passports of people traveling inside Arab countries should have a validity of more than 3 months. For Saudi citizens who wish to travel to other Gulf Cooperation Council countries, their national ID card must have a validity of more than 3 months.

In the last 24 hours, India witnessed 2,226 new COVID-19 cases, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare informed on Sunday.

Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia's Health Ministry has assured the public that no case of monkeypox has been reported in the country so far.

''The government has full capabilities to monitor and identify suspected monkeypox cases. If a case of monkeypox comes to the fore in the country, then the country also has the capacity to deal with it,'' said Saudi Arabia's Deputy Health Minister Abdullah Asiri.

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