A civil defence official revealed that fire on Wednesday erupted in a house inhabited by migrant workers in Saudi Arabia’s western city of Mecca, killing five people.
According to the News Agency of Nigeria, five others were injured in the house in Mecca’s district of Shara al-Mujahdeen, a spokesman for Mecca’s Civil Defence, Nayef al-Sherif, added in a media statement.
The fire first hit abandoned furniture and wood in the courtyard of the house and extended to a room where a family from Africa was living, al-Sherif said.
The blaze was later extinguished. Its cause was not immediately established.
Saudi Arabia, the world’s top oil exporter, has a large community of foreign workers.
Newsmen report that the International Labour Organisation estimated that there are about nine million migrant workers as of April 2013.