Govt staff in Saudi capital told to work from home

RIYADH: Government agencies in Saudi capital Riyadh have told employees to work from home starting Monday (Oct 19), one worker and two consultants told AFP, as the city comes under repeated attack from Yemen's Houthis.

The Kingdom Centre, a 99‑storey tower in downtown Riyadh that houses the regional office of the International Monetary Fund, has also requested workers in its offices to stay away until further notice.

On Sunday evening, an employee working for a government agency in Riyadh received a message saying "it has been decided to implement remote work from Monday to Thursday this week".

"We ask everyone to continue their activities as normal," it added.

Two consultants working for two Saudi government agencies said they had received the same instructions.

One of them told AFP he arrived at his workplace as normal on Monday morning only to learn that remote work had been mandated.

"The email was sent internally. We are consultants, so we didn't receive it. Once on site, we contacted the project manager on the client's side, who informed us," he said.

Two other sources told AFP that government offices located in skyscrapers in the Al-Olaya district, in central Riyadh, had been evacuated two weeks earlier.

Companies based in the King Abdullah Financial District, which hosts offices of major American firms, have also asked employees to work from home, according to other sources.

Saudi Arabia has been targeted with near-daily missile and drone attacks by the Houthis, who have launched strikes on airports, energy facilities and military sites.

In recent days, the strikes have reached unprecedented intensity, particularly at Riyadh airport, where an attack killed 13 people and injured hundreds on Oct 10 in the deadliest strike on Saudi soil in more than 10 years.

In total, 20 people have been killed in attacks targeting airports across Saudi Arabia since the beginning of the month.

After a lull in fighting that began in 2022, the Houthis' conflict with Saudi Arabia and Yemeni government forces resumed in July, opening a new front in the wider Middle East war.

In September, the Houthis seized Yemen's Red Sea coastline, tightening their grip on the strategic Bab al-Mandab shipping lane.