PARIS: The 2027 Dakar Rally will be moved from Saudi Arabia “following recent developments in the region,” organizers said on Sunday.

“Dakar 2027 will go ahead. The 2027 edition will take place in a different territory” but still be organized by ASO, which runs the Dakar along with Saudi Motorsport Company (SMC), read a statement from the organizers.

A new location will be announced in the “coming days,” it added.

It is the latest sporting event to be canceled, postponed or relocated amid the fallout from the wider US-Iran war that erupted in February.

Saudi Arabia and the legitimate Yemeni government have come under sustained attack in recent weeks from the Houthis as a years-long truce broke down in the summer, shifting the focus of the war.

Yemen’s civil war, pitting the Iran-backed Houthis against the internationally recognized government, had been dormant since a ceasefire in 2022, but reignited in July as the wider Middle East war roiled the region.

According to specialist media, the preferred option for next year’s Dakar would be a start in Spain with Morocco as the destination.

It would be the first time since 2007 that the gruelling multi-stage rally, created in 1978, returns to Africa.

The race, formerly called the Paris-Dakar, used to be staged from the French capital following a route to the Senegalese capital Dakar.

But security threats along its route in North Africa meant that from 2009 it was held in South America and from 2020 in Saudi Arabia.

Organizers said they intend to bring the rally back to Saudi Arabia in 2028 to celebrate its 50th edition.