According to media reports, two Algerians performing Umrah in Saudi Arabia's holy city of Mecca were stabbed to death by a fellow Algerian at a hotel there.

Saudi police said the suspected attacker, an Algerian visitor, was arrested after he stabbed the two visitors.

Algerian newspaper Elkhbar reported that the victims were part of a group of Algerians who traveled earlier this month to Saudi Arabia to perform Umrah.

A travel official in Algeria told Elkhbar that the suspect in the stabbings had been treated at a mental hospital in Algeria before traveling to Saudi Arabia's holy places.

“On the morning (of Monday), he behaved abnormally as a result of psychological pressure and he was nervous for an unknown reason that made him abnormal,” said Salah Toumi, the secretary-general of Algeria’s National Union of Tourism and Travel Agencies.

He added that the suspect had fatally stabbed one pilgrim at the hotel reception and inflicted similar stabs on the second in his room before fleeing.

“The Saudi police arrested him in the Grand Mosque after checking surveillance camera images.”

A pilgrim, who was a roommate of the two deceased pilgrims, is being held pending findings of an investigation into the attack, Toumi said.

It was reported that the pilgrims had left Constantine in eastern Algeria on February 14 to go to Medina in Saudi Arabia, where they stayed for three days before going to Mecca.