The blaze that took place in a hotel in the Saudi Arabian city of Medina on Saturday left 13 people dead, including nine Egyptians, an Algerian, a British man and two unidentified bodies, according to Egypt's consul general in Jeddah, Adel Al-Alfi. The dead included two siblings aged six and one year old. The two children had accompanied their parents and elder brother to perform the omra, or lesser pilgrimage. The father and brother were not in the hotel when the fire started. The mother and the two dead children were transferred to hospital, and though the mother survived the children could not be saved. The blaze also left 30 people injured, 61 of them Egyptians. All the injured got the necessary treatment and were discharged from hospital and relocated to another hotel, according to a statement from the Foreign Ministry. Ministry Spokesman Badr Abdel-Atty said that the Egyptian consulate in Jeddah had formed an operations room headed by Al-Alfi who had dispatched a delegation to Medina to follow up on the injured and make sure they were getting needed treatment and assistance. “The consulate general in Jeddah is taking all the necessary measures to secure the legal and financial rights of the dead and injured as far as compensation is concerned if it is proved that the fire was caused by negligence,” the statement added. The fire started at 2:33 in the afternoon, and fire-fighters were able to put out the blaze by 5pm. There were some 700 guests in the hotel when the fire broke out, and the Medina governorate issued a statement the same day saying 15 pilgrims had died and 130 others had been injured in the fire that broke out at the Ishraq Al-Madinah hotel on Saturday. It later corrected the number of the dead to 13, saying that the initial figures had been based on incorrect hospital reports. Eyewitnesses said the victims were of different nationalities and included Egyptians and Turks. Investigations are still underway to find the cause of the fire. Preliminary reports indicate that it started as a result of an electrical fault during maintenance work. However, these reports have not been confirmed. Most of those who died succumbed to suffocation, and the authorities evacuated the guests and closed off streets leading to the hotel. Some of those trapped inside the hotel climbed to the roof of the building for safety. Egypt's ambassador in Riyadh, Afifi Abdel-Wahab, told the media that a committee had been formed to follow up the tragedy. He said that he was in contact with Al-Alfi and the Saudi authorities. Many of the dead were pilgrims visiting Medina's holy sites. All the dead Egyptians have been buried in Medina. Medina is a major religious tourist destination for Muslims. The city is the burial site of the Prophet Mohammed and one of Islam's holiest cities after Mecca.
