January 9, 2023
Baghdad / Obelisk: Saudi Arabia announced on Monday that it will allow Muslims to perform Hajj this year without any restrictions on the number of pilgrims and their ages, after three years of significantly reducing the number of pilgrims due to the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic.
“The number of pilgrims will return to what it was before the pandemic, without any age restrictions,” Al-Ekhbariya TV reported, quoting Saudi Minister of Hajj and Umrah, Tawfiq Al-Rabiah, announcing at a press conference in Riyadh.
The outbreak of the Corona virus in 2020 forced the Gulf kingdom to reduce the number of pilgrims, while allowing only those under 65 years of age to perform them.
Hajj is considered one of the largest religious gatherings in the world, and the number of pilgrims in 2019 reached about 2.5 million pilgrims.
However, after the outbreak of the Corona virus in 2020, Saudi Arabia allowed only a thousand people to perform the religious rituals, before raising the number in 2021 to sixty thousand fully vaccinated, who were chosen by lottery. And the number was raised to one million Muslims, including 850,000 from outside the Kingdom, who were also chosen by lot.
The Saudi authorities required that all pilgrims arriving from abroad have received their full vaccination, and that they show a negative result of the Corona virus test.
Saudi Arabia has canceled most of the restrictions related to the Covid pandemic, especially the requirement to obtain vaccines to travel to it.
Obelisk – follow-up – agencies
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