Manama: Two seven-year-old boys who went missing in the Saudi Eastern Province city of Dammam were found safe 400 kilometres away, authorities said.

The two first grade pupils, one Saudi and the other Yemeni, reportedly left their school on Sunday during the morning break without being noticed and were found later by the police at a train station in the Saudi capital Riyadh.

“We received a call from the school on Sunday afternoon informing us that Mohammad, my nephew, left the school with a Yemeni pupils,” Abdul Rahman Al Ghamdi, the Saudi boy’s uncle, said.

“Our family and the family of the Yemeni student looked for them everywhere. We checked with all the hospitals and we also searched the water tanks near the school, but we could not find them,” he said, quoted by local news site Sabq.

Al Ghamdi added that they later received a call informing them that the two young boys were found in Riyadh after a Saudi national recognised them.

“He knew who they were after he saw their pictures that had been circulated on social networks as part of the online campaign launched to locate them,” Al Ghamdi said. “He informed the police at the station who worked out the details on how to reunite them with their families in Dammam. We want now to know how they ended up in the capital and how they were allowed to take the train all the way to Riyadh even though they did not have any identity documents,” he said.

The uncle said that the school should assume the responsibility for the incident.

“The school made two mistakes. It allowed them somehow to leave the school during the break and it failed to contact us on time. They waited until 1pm to get in touch with us, and that is four hours after the boys went missing. We will push for an investigation into this drama. We will also seek to know how the two young boys were able to take the train without any personal identification documents,” he said.

Online users insisted on a thorough probe to determine how the two boys managed to take the train without any security checkup and end up in Riyadh