Saudi Arabia bans travel to 16 countries amid rising COVID cases  

Jeddah: Saudi Arabia has banned its citizens from traveling to sixteen countries—owing to the re-outbreak of COVID-19 and the rapid surge in the number of daily infections over the past few weeks. 

According to details, Saudi citizens have been banned from traveling to 16 countries including—India, Lebanon, Syria, Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia, Ethiopia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Libya, Indonesia, Vietnam, Armenia, Belarus, and Venezuela. 

The Saudi General Directorate of Passports also stressed on citizens wishing to travel abroad to ensure that the remaining period of passport validity is more than three months when traveling to Arab countries, and over six months to other countries. 

The authorities are also directed to ensure that the remaining period for the validity of ID is more than 3 months when traveling to the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries. 

It also called on citizens to adhere to the health requirements, which are: receiving three doses of Covid-19 vaccines. 

Those under the age groups of 16 and 12 are required two doses of the vaccine. As for those who are under the age of 12, they are required to keep with them an insurance policy against coronavirus while traveling outside the Kingdom. 

Saudi authorities said that the ban was implemented after it observed a consistent increase in the number of daily Covid-19 cases in the previous weeks.

It is pertinent to mention here that Saudi Arabia’s General Department of Passports dropped several Covid-19 restrictions towards the end of last year but now re-imposing some of them as Covid-19 cases are being reported from various parts of the world.