RIYADH, May 5: At least seven inmates died and many others received injuries in a fire that engulfed a prison in eastern Saudi Arabia, a senior security official said on Monday.

“The fire that erupted in al-Hassa prison on Sunday evening caused 16 inmates and three security men to nearly suffocate,” the director of Saudi prisons, Major-General Ali bin Hussein al-Harthi, said in a statement carried by the Saudi Press Agency.

Seven prisoners died upon arrival in hospital. Al-Harthi added that the fire broke out in a ward of the prison. The prison authorities immediately evacuated prisoners from the wards until the fire was brought under control. An investigation into the fire is reportedly under way.

A local website gave a different version of the fires saying the seven died after setting fire to mattresses inside cells in a protest over conditions of the inmates in the prison.

The Al-Hassa region on the east coast of Saudi Arabia is mainly inhabited by Shias. According to press reports, last November also the prison was the scene of protests by inmates over the existing conditions in the jail.