TRAVEL AND TOURISM

Over 1.7mln Haj visas issued Pilgrims arrival complete

Reuters Images/Zohra Bensemra
Reuters Images/Zohra Bensemra
Reuters Images/Zohra Bensemra
There has been an increase of 2% in the number of pilgrims this year: official
PHOTO
 

JEDDAH The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has issued more than 1.7 million visas for this year’s Haj, according to a ministry official. Tamim Al-Dosary, undersecretary for consular affairs at the ministry, told the Saudi Press Agency that as many as 1,720,680 visas have been issued by the ministry’s foreign missions for the coming Haj.

The last batch of pilgrims arrived at King Abdulaziz International Airport in Jeddah and Prince Muhammad International Airport in Madinah on Wednesday. The General Authority of Civil Aviation (GACA) has completed successfully its operation plan for the arrival phase of the pilgrims for the current Haj season. There has been an increase of two percent in the number of pilgrims this year, according to Abdul Hakeem Al-Tamimi, president of GACA. The duration for completion of travel procedures of the pilgrims at the Jeddah Haj terminal has been reduced to 25 minutes from three hours, he said.

Maj. Gen. Sulaiman Al-Yahya, director general of Passports, announced the arrival of 1,684,629 pilgrims during this year’s Haj season through all the Kingdom’s land, sea and air ports, noting that 1,584,085 pilgrims arrived via air ports, while 84,381 pilgrims through land entry points and 16,163 pilgrims through sea ports.

The arrival of the last flights under the ‘Makkah Road’ initiative, implemented this year at Kuala Lumpur and Jakarta airports, was completed on Thursday, benefiting 103,057 pilgrims through 240 flights, including 137 flights at Jeddah airport and 103 flights in Madinah.

Maj. Gen. Al-Yahya, who is also head of the team for the initiative, said that this uniform electronic path service represents one of the initiatives that the Supreme Haj Committee is developing with direct follow up by Minister of Interior and Chairman of the Supreme Haj Committee Prince Abdul Aziz Bin Saud Bin Naif. This was in implementation of the directives of Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman and Crown Prince Muhammad Bin Salman to continuously improve services being provided for pilgrims.

The ‘Makkah Road’ is one of the initiatives of the National Transformation Program of 2020 being implemented as part of the Kingdom’s Vision 2030. Under the system, the entire travel process of the pilgrims, including their immigration checks, customs clearance, verification of whether fulfilled health requirements and encoding of baggage tags in accordance with the transport and accommodation arrangements in the Kingdom were held at the point of departure.

The last batch of a total of 1,300 pilgrims arrived in the Kingdom as the guests of King Salman on Thursday. Around 1,000 Palestinian pilgrims who are relatives of martyrs also arrived in Makkah.

Meanwhile, the 43th session of the grand Haj symposium came to an end in Makkah on Thursday. The two-day meeting was held in the presence of Minister of Haj and Umrah Muhammad Benten. A large number of Islamic scholars, thinkers, and writers from the Islamic world attended the event.

 

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