6 Emiratis killed in Oman, Saudi road tragedies

The wreckage of the SUV that crashed head-on with a truck on the muscat-Salalah highway in Adam Wilayat. - Photo courtesy Royal Oman Police Twitter

Tragedy befell two groups of Emirati travellers on Saturday, when six of them died in two separate road accidents in the Sultanate of Oman and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
Four Emiratis were killed when their SUV slammed into an oncoming truck on the highway linking the Omani capital Muscat with Salalah, the subtropical holiday hotspot in the south of the country. According to the Royal Oman Police (ROP), the accident occurred in an area known as Auwafya in Adam Wilayat at the entrance to the sprawling desert heartland of central Oman.
The identities of the deceased were not immediately released.
In Saudi Arabia, an Emirati couple was killed and their three daughters were injured after the car they were travelling in crashed on the Riyadh international highway on Saturday. The family is believed to have been returning to the UAE after performing Umra.
One of the deceased was identified as Ali Saif Al Hamadi. The injured daughters have been identified as Amina, Sara and Al Yaziya.
The injured were rushed to the King Salman Hospital in Riyadh, while the bodies were shifted to Al Ghat hospital.
Lt-General Shaikh Saif bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Interior, issued instructions to the ministry to coordinate with the UAE Armed Forces to airlift the injured and the bodies back home.
The ministry is in touch with the authorities in Saudi Arabia to facilitate the airlift. A medical team will be onboard the air ambulance.
In a separate accident that occurred in Muscat, four members of an Indian family died when their vehicle hurtled into the pillar of a pedestrian bridge just after midnight on Friday.
The crash claimed the lives of the driver, his wife, young son and a visiting in-law. An older son is understood to have suffered serious injuries and is currently being treated at the city's main trauma care centre.
It is reported that the family members were returning from a tour of hot springs in the interior of the country when the driver lost control of the vehicle and barrelled into the bridge structure at Al Khuwair near Muscat's Diplomatic Enclave.
The family hails from the western Indian state of Maharashtra.
Recent Oman crashes involving UAE residents
March 2016: 18 people were killed and 14 others injured when a Salalah-Dubai passenger bus collided with a truck and car at a roundabout on the road connecting Fahud and Ibri
September 2015: Couple's Eid break ended in tragedy as wife dies in car crash. The couple had travelled to Salalah to celebrate Eid
August 2015: Five members of an Emirati family were killed in a horrific road accident in Adam, Oman
January 2015: An Emirati family of four died in a car crash in Oman. A 62-year-old Emirati, his 52-year-old wife and two children aged 19 and 22 years were the victims
January 2015: An Indian woman died and three people were seriously injured when the car they were travelling in hit an electric pole in Oman's Sur city
March 2013: Six members of an Emirati family were killed in a road crash while travelling to Salalah
reporters@khaleejtimes.com

• UAE
• Saudi Arabia
• Oman