Riyadh: Denmark on Sunday confirmed that one of its nationals was shot and wounded in the Saudi Arabian capital and said it was assisting the victim’s relatives.
“We can confirm that a Danish citizen has been shot. We’re giving consular help to the family,” a Danish foreign ministry official told AFP.
The source provided no other details about the attack, which the official Saudi Press Agency said took place at 2:00 pm (1100 GMT) on Saturday.
The Dane was driving away from his work at a company in Riyadh’s Kharj Road area when he was shot in the shoulder from “an unknown source”, SPA said.
Investigations were underway and the victim was in stable condition at hospital, it said, without providing any further details.
The rare incident comes after Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan and Bahrain in September joined a US-led campaign of air strikes against Daesh in Syria, raising concerns about possible retaliation in the kingdom.
Denmark is among the countries - with Australia, Belgium, Britain, Canada, France and The Netherlands - participating in a similar campaign against Daesh in Iraq.
Attacks on Westerners have been rare in the country in recent years, after several were killed in a wave Al Qaida violence between 2003 and 2006.
In October, a Saudi-American former employee of a US defence contractor shot dead one American colleague and wounded another in Riyadh.
The suspect had recently been fired from his job, officials said.
