With wheelchairs and walking sticks, pilgrims throng Makkah

MAKKAH: Their backs hunched, elderly pilgrims lean on walking sticks as others in wheelchairs nudge their way into Makkah’s Grand Mosque where scores of people are encircling the holy Kaaba.
“Allah-o-Akbar,” they chant in unison.
Most are Asian and African, among the hundreds of thousands of faithful who have descended on the holy city for Haj.
The Grand Mosque remains thronged for prayers and for the year-round minor pilgrimage or Umrah.
With the call to prayer the crowds fall silent, many spreading their prayer rugs on roads leading to the mosque.
“I have never before witnessed such a feeling of happiness,” says Aisha, 50, an Algerian pilgrim in a face mask walking hand-in-hand with her son Ahmed.
This year’s Haj comes as the authorities strive to protect pilgrims from two viruses, Ebola and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus or MERS.
Pilgrims from Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, the three nations hardest-hit by Ebola which has killed more than 3,000 people in West Africa this year, have not been allowed in for the Haj, AFP reported.
However Nigeria, where Ebola has killed eight people, was granted permission to send pilgrims to the world’s largest gathering of Muslims.
“There was this scare earlier that pilgrims from Nigeria could not participate because of Ebola,” Saeed Amisu was quoted as saying in the report.
Like others from Nigeria, Amisu has had to complete two forms, one at home and another in Saudi Arabia, pledging that he had not visited any Ebola-hit town or contacted a patient.
Nigerians also underwent medical tests and their temperatures were recorded both in Nigeria and at Jeddah airport, the main entry point for foreign pilgrims.
For prevention, “we were told to wash our hands with soap before” doing anything, Amisu says in the report.
With so many people concentrated in such a limited area for a short time, “the Haj season constitutes a factor increasing the likelihood of outbreaks or epidemics of infectious diseases,” acting Health Minister Adel Fakeih has said.
According to Ahmed from Algeria, “there are certain nationalities we try to stay away from. We also try to keep away from closed areas and to keep wearing the face masks despite the hot weather.”
No Ebola cases have yet been reported in the Kingdom, and the last MERS death was announced more than a week ago in Taif, east of Makkah.
This year’s Haj also comes with Muslim nations drawn together by their opposition to Islamic State (IS) group militants.
Saudi Arabia and four other Arab states have joined Washington in targeting the militants in Syria with air strikes.
Speaking after an annual military parade, Interior Minister Prince Mohammed bin Naif gave a reassurance that the Haj would be secure.
He vowed the authorities would “decisively deal with this organization (IS) and others.”
Prince Mohammed is known as the Kingdom’s iron fist in the fight against Al-Qaeda, having cracked down after deadly attacks in the country about a decade ago.
He urged pilgrims to shun “political and ideological” slogans during the Haj, the SPA news agency reported.