Saudi to issue SAR500,000 fine for withholding travel information at entry points

On Monday, a statement from Saudi Arabia’s public prosecutor stated that the kingdom will levy a fine of SAR500,000 ($133,000; Dhs490,000) on anyone who does not disclose their complete health-related information and travel details at the entry points.

Read: Saudi Arabia bans travel to UAE, eight other countries

The very first case of the virus that was detected in the country on March 3 was of a Saudi citizen who came from Iran via Bahrain, but did not disclose his visit to Iran at the Saudi port.

On March 5, Saudi reported that a couple was also infected where the husband had returned from Iran but did not disclose his travel itinerary upon arrival into Saudi Arabia via Kuwait.

Read: Saudi extends travel bans to 14 countries, including Oman, European nations

The Ministry of Health has reported five new cases of the Covid-19 coronavirus, taking the total number of confirmed cases in the kingdom to 20.

Saudi Arabia has taken extraordinary steps to curb the spread of the virus within the kingdom.

All private and public educational institutions in the country have been closed indefinitely.

Read: Etihad flights that landed in Saudi on Monday had to return with all non-Saudi nationals

Even before the first case of the virus within the country was announced, Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs on February 27 stated that it had decided to suspend all Umrah visits.

It followed that up with an announcement that it had temporarily suspended the entry of GCC citizens to Makkah and Madinah exempting those GCC citizens who have been in the kingdom for 14 consecutive days and have not shown symptoms of coronavirus.

Also, it suspended the use of national identity card for its citizens and citizens of GCC states to travel to and from Saudi Arabia, with exemptions made for those GCC citizens already in the kingdom or those Saudi nationals outside of the country.

On March 9, Saudi announced that it had suspended all travel to and from nine countries including the UAE. The other countries included Kuwait, Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Italy, South Korea and Syria.

Later the same day it added that it was suspending travel to Oman, France, Germany, Turkey and Spain too, thus taking the total number of countries from which it had suspended travel to 14.

The kingdom has also suspended entry and exit from Al Qatif governorate after 11 coronavirus cases in the country originated there.