The Kingdom’s Hajj and Umrah ministry has confirmed that pilgrims from Nigeria will arrive at Jeddah’s King Abdulaziz Airport as the Umrah pilgrimage begins internationally for this year.
The first carriage of foreigner pilgrims to reach Saudi Arabia on Friday as the Umrah Pilgrimage begins internationally for this year amidst the ongoing Coronavirus pandemic.
It will be the housing companies to receive Umrah pilgrims from the airport and hotels and supervise their entry to the Grand Mosque. “They are ready,” a member of the National Committee for Hajj and Umrah Hani Ali Al-Amiri said.
Umrah appointments will be taken through the Eatmarna application and so will the follow-up with each group.
Al-Amiri said that pilgrims will be able to purchase the entire Umrah program, including flights, transportation, hotels, and choose Umrah companies through electronic platforms.
Moreover, the Kingdom aims to gradually up the pilgrim numbers Umrah to 2 million. Currently, it stands at 60,000 per month.
On the other hand, Pakistan is among nine countries been banned from entering Saudi Arabia for the Umrah pilgrimage, the country’s federal minister for religious affairs, Noor ul Haq Qadri has claimed.
Saudi Arabia, on August 9, opened applications, with conditions, from devotees vaccinated against the coronavirus disease for entry into the kingdom for Umrah.
According to Saudi Arabia’s health ministry, travellers, who have completed two doses of the made-in-China vaccines against COVID-19, including Sinovac and Sinopharm, should get a booster dose of any of the four other authorised vaccines in the country, to be granted entry.
“All visitors arriving in the country with a valid tourism visa must provide evidence of a full course of one of the four vaccines currently recognised: two doses of Oxford/AstraZeneca, Pfizer/BioNTech, or Moderna vaccines, or a single dose of the Johnson and Johnson vaccine,” the guidelines stated.
