dubai saudi arabia has announced a threeyear travel ban and hefty penalties on citizens who visit countries on the kingdoms covid19 red list including india travelling to the banned countries is an obvious violation of covid19 related travel restrictions and the kingdoms updated instructions the gulf news on tuesday quoted a report by the staterun saudi press agency spa as saying the spa report said an official at the saudi ministry of interior has warned saudi citizens against travelling to countries that have been put on the notravel list recently as these nations are currently witnessing a surge in cases of covid19 and its variants the redlist countries include the uae libya syria lebanon yemen iran turkey armenia ethiopia somalia congo afghanistan venezuela belarus india and vietnam the source quoted by the spa said there are reports about citizens travelling to the banned countries in violation of the instructions issued by official authorities those who violate the travel ban will be held accountable and slapped with heavy penalties the source said adding that those who are found to have violated the instructions would be banned from travelling abroad for three years the ministry called on citizens against travelling directly or indirectly to the redlist countries where the pandemic has not yet been controlled and there is a surge in cases of mutated strains of coronavirus it also urged citizens to exercise caution and stay away from areas where instability prevails or the virus is spreading and take all precautionary measures regardless of their destination as of tuesday the kingdoms coronavirus tally stands at 520774 including 11136 active cases while the total death toll was at 8189