Many people were injured in an explosion at Riyadh’s international airport, in Saudi Arabia, on Saturday (the 10th), according to two eyewitnesses and two people familiar with the matter, and travelers were evacuated from some areas of the venue.
One of the eyewitnesses reported having seen an explosion and, subsequently, several injured people lying on the ground inside the airport. More than a dozen ambulances were seen rushing to the airport.
The Saudi government’s press office and the Saudi Civil Aviation Authority did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The Saturday incident comes amid an escalation of missile attacks against the kingdom by Yemen’s Houthis, aligned with Iran. The airport had already been attacked twice this week, leaving four dead and others injured, in addition to causing serious damage to an aircraft.
The flight-tracking site Flightradar24 showed that all flights to Riyadh had been diverted or canceled, with only one helicopter flying over the airport at a given moment.
The airport asked passengers to contact their airlines directly and check the status of their flights before heading to the facility.
Kuwait Airways said it had canceled flights to and from the Saudi capital due to what it described as the closure of Riyadh airport because of the “security situation” at the site.
Etihad Airways and Qatar Airways had already canceled several flights between their respective hubs and Riyadh, with some cancellations extending into Monday.
(Reporting by Timour Azhari in Riyadh)
