The monthly payment for unemployed Saudi men and women was decided by Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah under a program named Hafiz (incentive).
According to the eyewitnesses, the Red Crescent was asked to send ambulances and paramedics to treat some women who were injured during the melee.
They said the women came in numbers much larger than the capacity of the bank, creating chaos in the process as each one of them was insisting to take a good position in the queue. They said the bank had only a few women staff to serve them.
Last week a similar incident occurred in the southern town of Khamis Mushayt, which has three women's branches. The women, wishing to open accounts, reportedly said there were not enough chairs for them to sit on and no toilets to use. They also said they had to wait for about eight hours without being served, because of the small number of bank employees.
The Ministry of Labor will start paying the monthly salaries for unemployed Saudis starting the first of Muharram 1433 (Nov. 26). Labor Minister Adel Fakeih has said so far about 1.5 million Saudis have registered in the Hafiz program to receive the payments.
The commercial banks together have 1,551 branches all over the Kingdom, but the branches especially designated for women customers are only a few in number, despite the fact that women bank deposits represent about 70 percent of the total, according to unofficial statistics.