Egyptian pilgrims denied visas because of Umrah overstayers

Several Saudi Haj and Umrah providers have reportedly turned down Umrah visa requests made by Egyptian tourism agencies after allegedly complaining that thousands of Egyptian pilgrims routinely overstay their visas.
Egyptian agencies have already incurred huge losses after tens of thousands of pilgrims were prevented from performing the pilgrimage for failing to secure valid visas.
“The decision contravenes the rules and principles of trade relations worldwide,” said Nasser Al-Turki, chairman of the religious tourism chamber in Cairo.
“More than 75,000 Egyptians have been deprived of the pilgrimage in the last one year because several Saudi firms have accused Egyptian agencies of failing to guarantee a timely arrival and departure in spite of the fact that these agencies reportedly showed punctuality this year,” he said.
Mohammed Abdul Bar, the director of a pilgrimage establishment firm in Makkah, refuted these claims.
“There has been no premeditated decision among firms to decline the Umrah visa requests from Egyptian pilgrims,” he told Arab News. “In fact, many Egyptian visitors continue to flood into Makkah daily. It may just be a question of pending agreements between the agents in the Kingdom and Egypt.”
Others attribute this development to a visa quota cap per agency.
“Umrah firms cannot approve more than 500,000 visa requests during Ramadan,” Saad Al-Quraishi, president of the Haj and Umrah Committee at the Makkah Chamber of Industry and Commerce, told Arab News. “This means that some applications will undoubtedly be refused.”
Around 50,000 Egyptian pilgrims will have missed performing Umrah in Ramadan.
Around six million Umrah visas have been issued this year — 400,000 this month alone, according to the Haj Ministry.
Haj Minister Bandar Hajjar said that 5.6 million pilgrims have arrived in the Kingdom this year and that 5.3 million of them have already left.