Saudi Arabia announced today, Monday, that it will allow Muslims to perform religious rituals Pilgrimage This year, without any restrictions on the number of pilgrims and their ages, following three years of significantly reducing the number of pilgrims due to the outbreak of the “Covid-19” pandemic.
The Saudi Minister of Hajj and Umrah, Tawfiq Al-Rabiah, said in a conference that this year’s Hajj season will not require an upper age limit..
Sources told Al-Arabiya that the value of medical insurance for pilgrims has been reduced by more than 60%, and the sources stated that this year’s Hajj will be the same number as before the Corona pandemic..
Earlier, Ihab Abdel-Al, a former member of the Supreme Committee for Hajj and Umrah, said that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has begun to look at the issue of Umrah in a positive way and allows large numbers to enter its lands.
A former member of the Supreme Committee for Hajj and Umrah added that the new type of visa is tourism or visiting a friend in Saudi Arabia, and it is also possible to enter the Kingdom with an American visa directly, and this may threaten tourism companies that were organizing the entire trip from the visa until arriving in Saudi Arabia.
A former member of the Supreme Committee for Hajj and Umrah explained that the new visa system for Saudi Arabia threatens more than 1,800 tourism companies that declare bankruptcy and lay off their employees, and therefore an agreement must be reached between Egypt and Saudi Arabia at the highest level to organize this process so that 3 damages do not occur, namely the loss of fees on the state in the hundreds of billions and the collapse of Economic for tourism companies and exposure of some long-term residents to fraud.