{"id":2430,"date":"2006-12-11T15:26:19","date_gmt":"2006-12-11T15:26:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tat.reddaisytrading.co.uk\/index.php\/2006\/12\/11\/british-muslims-killed-in-hajj-coach-crash\/"},"modified":"2016-01-06T16:46:22","modified_gmt":"2016-01-06T16:46:22","slug":"british-muslims-killed-in-hajj-coach-crash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/2006\/12\/11\/british-muslims-killed-in-hajj-coach-crash\/","title":{"rendered":"British Muslims killed in Hajj coach crash"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"content\">\n<div><strong>Three British Muslims have died in a coach crash in Saudi Arabia after the driver fell asleep at the wheel.<\/strong><\/div>\n<p>&#13;<\/p>\n<div>The bus, carrying Hajj pilgrims from Medina to Mecca hit a road barrier early on Saturday.<\/div>\n<p>&#13;<\/p>\n<div>Saudi police revealed the driver of the coach had fallen asleep at the wheel moments before it crashed into a road barrier. <\/div>\n<p>&#13;<\/p>\n<div>The Foreign Office have not revealed the names of the deceased but have confirmed they were all British citizens. <\/div>\n<p>&#13;<\/p>\n<div>More than 30 others were also injured in the crash, which is believed to have affected pilgrims from Bolton, Leicester and London. <\/div>\n<p>&#13;<\/p>\n<div>Gerard Russell, the British Consul-General in Saudi Arabia, said the names of the victims were known and next-of-kin had been informed. <\/div>\n<p>&#13;<\/p>\n<div>&#8220;There is no need for any other people to worry that they may have had relatives who were killed in the crash,&#8221; he told Sky News. <\/div>\n<p>&#13;<\/p>\n<div>&#8220;Some of the injuries are serious, most injuries are relatively minor, but obviously everybody is in a lot of shock.&#8221; <\/div>\n<p>&#13;<\/p>\n<div>Around 25,000 Britons take part each year in the Hajj, the annual pilgrimage to Islam&#8217;s holy sites in Mecca. <\/div>\n<p>&#13;<\/p>\n<div>Last year, more than 300 people, including three from Britain, were killed in a stampede. <\/div>\n<p>&#13;\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Three British Muslims have died in a coach crash in Saudi Arabia after the driver fell asleep at the wheel. &#13; The bus, carrying Hajj pilgrims from Medina to Mecca hit a road barrier early on Saturday. &#13; Saudi police revealed the driver of the coach had fallen asleep at the wheel moments before it [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11753,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2430","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2430","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2430"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2430\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11753"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2430"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2430"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theasiantoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2430"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}