India condemns Saudi attacks after an Indian dies at Dammam airport and three are hurt; embassy urges shelter

Saudi Arabia's General Authority of Civil Aviation gave a fuller count of the airport attack, which it said happened on Wednesday evening. Two people were killed, an Indian resident and a Saudi citizen. Eight others were injured, among them two Indians, two Yemenis, two Bangladeshis, one Nepalese and one Saudi citizen, and they were being treated at hospitals. The airport resumed operations afterwards, and air traffic returned to normal.

At Shaybah, which produces about a million barrels of crude a day in the Empty Quarter near the border with the United Arab Emirates, Saudi authorities said air defences stopped an attempt to hit the oilfield but that falling shrapnel caused casualties. The Dammam airport had also been targeted earlier in the month. The energy ministry said the debris struck a contractor's vehicle outside the plant and started a fire, and that production was not affected. Saudi Arabia has not publicly named who was behind the Dammam attack. The Houthis, the Yemeni rebel group, have claimed a continuing series of strikes on Saudi airports and energy facilities and have not commented on this one.

The Indian embassy in Riyadh is in touch with the Saudi authorities for more details, is reaching out to the affected families and is giving help to the injured Indians. It has also issued an advisory. Indians in the kingdom have been asked to stay alert, follow local instructions and take shelter indoors during air attacks. They are warned not to film or share photographs or videos of interceptions and of sites that have been hit, because that can bring legal consequences under Saudi law.

The scale of the community explains the concern: about 2.74 million Indian nationals work in Saudi Arabia in many sectors. The death is not the first this month. An Indian was killed earlier in October in an attack on King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh, an attack described as the deadliest on the kingdom in more than a decade.

A pattern of attacks

The strikes are part of an escalation. A Houthi strike on a pumping station east of Riyadh on 5 October reportedly halted crude flows on the East-West pipeline. That pipeline, which can carry about seven million barrels a day to Red Sea terminals, is the kingdom's route around the Strait of Hormuz. With the strait shut, the United States has told non-emergency government staff and their families to leave Saudi Arabia, citing attacks on airports and critical infrastructure. It has denied that it is withdrawing from the wider Gulf.

For India the consequences run in two directions. Oil prices rose above $110 a barrel after the Shaybah strike, which adds to the cost of fuel imports and to inflation, and which weighed on the Sensex on Thursday. And the safety of the millions of Indians who work in the kingdom now depends on how far the conflict spreads inside the Gulf.

The ministry did not name the attacker, and its statement, as quoted, focuses on the loss of civilian life and on the need to stop the strikes. Families of Indians in the kingdom who need information are advised to be in touch with the embassy in Riyadh, which says it will provide all possible assistance.