Bahrain threatens untested from Iran with arrest amid Coronavirus outbreak

Bahrain on Saturday threatened legal prosecution against travelers who came from Iran and hn't been tested for new Coronavirus, and also barred public garings for two weeks as confirmed cases across wider Mideast grew to over 520.

tiny island nation off coast of Saudi Arabia has been hard-hit with cases and shut down flights to halt spre of virus, which causes illness named COVID-19 by experts.

All of Bahrain's cases link back to Iran, whose death toll of 34 killed is worst outside of China, epicenter of virus.

Bahrain's Interior Ministry said in a statement that 2,292 people h come to kingdom from Iran before anuncement of outbreak re. Of those, only “310 citizens” h called authorities and undergone testing, ministry said, raising possibility of untested being arrested and charged if y refuse.

ministry "affirmed that required legal proceedings would be taken against anyone who returned from Iran in February and didn’t call to make appointments for tests," Interior Ministry said. “It highlighted that preventing outbreak of infection is responsibility of individuals and society as a whole.”

Sunni-ruled Bahrain has engd in a yearslong crackdown on all dissent in island kingdom since its 2011 Arab Spring protests, which saw its majority Shiite population demand greater political freedoms. Militants have launched small, sporic attacks in time since which Bahrain security forces blame on Iran, Mideast's Shiite power.

Meanwhile Saturday, Saudi Arabia anunced it would bar citizens of Gulf Cooperation Council from Islam's holiest sites in Mecca and Medina over concerns about virus' spre. GCC is a six-nation group including Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates.

It represented an unprecedented move, one which wasn’t taken even during 1918 flu epidemic that killed tens of millions worldwide,