JEDDAH, 25 June 2005 — A happy event turned into a virtual free-for-all in a small town in Jizan with the members who had turned up for a wedding squaring up with the locals of the Al-Rayyan township, Al-Watan reported yesterday. The cause for the fight, said to be an innocuous verbal exchange, has not been established. But one moment people were celebrating the happy occasion and the next were involved in a fight that turned bloody. Some 350 people were involved in the fight. To add to the trauma, a power outage during the fight made things worse as the outraged people used eqals (head gear) and sticks to battle it out as police were called in. One youth fired a shot in the air during the fight, and was arrested. Many were injured and were taken to hospital, the paper added.
