Seven Bangladeshi nationals, including women and children, have been killed in a road accident in Saudi Arabia while travelling from Medina toward Jeddah, Bangladeshi media reported on Saturday.

Source: Daily Post (Bangladesh)

The Daily Post reported that the vehicle lost control on the Medina–Jeddah route. The victims' names were not yet known when its report was published, and officials of the Bangladesh Consulate General in Jeddah had begun working to identify the victims and gather further details.

A fuller account from Agamir Somoy said all seven were associated with the Al Abir Cold Store Trading Company and came from Chakaria upazila in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh. According to the company's marketing manager, Nuruzzaman, the dead include the company's storekeeper Ziaur Rahman, his two sons and his daughter.

Source: Agamir Somoy

Also killed were the wife of Ilias, a forklift operator at the company, and Alam Shah, a storekeeper working in Mecca, along with his one-month-old daughter, the company official said. Awaaz Punjab does not name child victims; the children are described here only by their relation to the adults, as the reports themselves did.

The bodies were kept at the morgue of a government hospital in Medina, Agamir Somoy reported. No detailed information was yet available about the cause of the accident or about arrangements for sending the bodies back to Bangladesh.

Jago News reported that the Consul General of Bangladesh in Jeddah confirmed the accident and said the consulate had formally asked the local authorities for the details of the casualties.

The Gulf road risk behind the remittances

Saudi Arabia hosts one of the largest Bangladeshi expatriate communities in the Gulf, and long desert-highway journeys between cities such as Medina, Mecca and Jeddah are a routine part of workers' and their families' lives. When a crash like this one happens, the work of identification falls to the consulate — and the wait falls on families back home.

Agamir Somoy said the deaths cast a shadow of grief over the victims' relatives, colleagues and the wider expatriate Bangladeshi community. What happens next is the formal identification of all seven, word from Saudi authorities on the cause, and a decision on repatriating the bodies to Chakaria.