Four-year-old boy killed in elevator shaft

A four-year-old Saudi boy was killed after plunging down through a lift’s hole that was left unguarded in a major shopping mall in the oil-rich Gulf Kingdom, local newspapers reported on Monday.

Police searching for the missing boy found his body at the bottom of the lift in the underground level of the mall in the eastern port of Dammam, the papers said.

The boy was reported missing on Thursday and police had to push their way down through the lift’s hole with the help of the civil defence after a cleaner at the mall found pieces of the boy’s clothes stuck to the lift’s edges.

“Preliminary investigation shows that the child had fallen into that pit through the opening next to the lift,” said Lt Colonel Ziad Raqiti, a police spokesman.

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