MAKKAH, 19 February — Final preparations were under way yesterday for the Haj that begins tomorrow when up to 2.5 million faithful are expected to throng Makkah before moving on to the ritual site of Mina.
Security forces have set up seven major road blocks around Makkah to prevent unauthorized entry into the city that is already overflowing with people. Only those with special permits are allowed in and thousands of the faithful have been turned back.
Hundreds of police cars control all other entrances to stop infiltrators.
According to statistics released by the Information Center of the Haj Ministry, about 1.34 million pilgrims arrived from abroad until Sunday. Pilgrims have continued to pour in to King Abdul Aziz International Airport in Jeddah, armed with dispensations from the government.
Although the Kingdom had set a Saturday midnight (2100 GMT) deadline for pilgrims arriving by plane, the government had granted several exemptions, an official said.
Unofficial figures have already put the arrivals beyond 1.5 million, a number due to be swelled by some 500,000 Saudis and foreigners resident in the country.
Among the latecomers are pilgrims hosted by Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Fahd and the government, and more than 11,000 Afghans. Airport officials said three flights by Saudi Arabian Airlines carrying some 1,000 Afghans were scheduled to land yesterday. The Afghan Haj Mission in Makkah said 12,500 Afghans received Haj visas, but only 950 of them had arrived by Saturday.
Thousands of other Afghan pilgrims have left Kabul for Makkah as last-minute international efforts gathered pace to transport them, ending a week of frustration over cancelled flights and visa delays. “Three thousand Afghan pilgrims left last night,” Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah said here yesterday.
The United Arab Emirates Monday joined Saudi Arabia, Britain and Pakistan in efforts to transport the pilgrims who have been stranded in Kabul due to a lack of aircraft and delays in getting visas. “More than four aircraft will from Monday establish an air link to carry thousands of Afghans blocked in Kabul,” the Emirati WAM news agency said.
UAE President Sheikh Zayed ibn Sultan Al-Nahyan had decided to lay on the flights as Saudi Arabia announced that it too would provide four planes to bring in the pilgrims.
One of the Saudi flights landed in Jeddah overnight yesterday, the Saudi Press Agency reported.
Britain’s Royal Air Force is to also run four Hercules C-130 transporter flights a day out of Afghanistan until tomorrow, when the Haj begins in earnest, London’s Defense Ministry said.
“Our assistance in this is essentially a humanitarian gesture but reflects our determination to assist the Afghans in getting their country back on its feet,” a British Ministry of Defense spokesman said.
Some 15,000 Afghans are planning to make the Haj pilgrimage to Makkah.
One of the flights was provided by Pakistan International Airlines (PIA), which flew into the Afghan capital for the first time in more than 20 years to collect 270 pilgrims. The plane took the hajis to Jeddah, after a brief stopover in Islamabad.
A second PIA Airbus left yesterday for Jeddah with a further 270 Afghan pilgrims, state-run Associated Press of Pakistan reported.
Pilgrims from well over 160 countries around the world have arrived for this year’s Haj.
Among those already in the Kingdom are 200,000 from Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim country, 130,000 from Pakistan, 116,000 from India, 103,000 Turks, 91,000 Iranians and 88,000 Egyptians.
Gigantic traffic jams in Makkah, a city with a population of 550,000, make travel very difficult, especially around the Grand Mosque.
“We are used to such traffic snarlups. They’ve become part of our life,” admitted Khaled, a middle-aged resident of the holy city, trying to drive around the Grand Mosque complex, where most roads are off limits to private vehicles.
However an old Saudi driver, using his car to carry paying passengers, a common practice during the Haj, voiced frustration. “It really irritates me a lot. I don’t feel like coming close to the mosque vicinity, because each time I come it seems that I will never get out,” the old man said.
Pilgrims continue to gather in Makkah until tomorrwo when they start to walk to Mina, a tent city on the outskirts of the city and then on Thursday move to Arafat for the climax of the rites.
The authorities have deployed more than 20,000 soldiers and another 10,000 police and security men to control the pilgrims.
A hi-tech control room is connected to more than 2,000 cameras installed in Makkah and the holy sites. Nine helicopters are also at work.
Such is the crush of numbers crowding the holy sites that the slightest problem can result in disaster. Last year, 35 died in a stampede during the stoning of Satan ritual in Mina.
