3 children aged 2 to 6 killed in Saudi house fire

Three children aged between 2 and 6 years died after their house was engulfed in fire while their father was serving pilgrims during the annual Haj season last week.

Police, quoted by 'Sharq' newspaper, said the two boys, aged 4 and 6 years, and their two-year-old sister suffocated to death during the blaze at their house in the central Saudi province of Qateef.

The paper said their father Hussein Al Abbas was in Makkah for the Haj season as one of the workers recruited by the government to serve the pilgrims. It made no reference of their mother or say whether they were on their own at home during the blaze.