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Saudi Arabia to increase pilgrim capacity

January 6, 2017 at 9:27 am

Saudi Arabia will increase the capacity of Makkah’s Grand Mosque to accept more pilgrims during the next Hajj season, official sources at the Saudi Ministry of Hajj and Umrah revealed yesterday.

The decision was made after four consecutive years of reducing the number of domestic and foreign pilgrims due to the expansion works that have been taking place at Makkah’s Grand Mosque which are said to be almost complete.

According to Saudi Press Agency (SPA), the Minister of Hajj and Umrah Mohammed Bin Saleh Bin Tahir Benten confirmed the news by expressing his thanks to King Salman, the crown prince and the deputy crown prince for their approval to raise the capacity and number of pilgrims during the upcoming Hajj season.

“The Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Naif Bin Abdulaziz, deputy premier and minister of the interior, who is also head of the Hajj Supreme Committee, stressed that raising the number of pilgrims will be gradually implemented,” Benten explained.

This came during his meeting with the heads of Hajj delegations of several Arab and Islamic states.

Over the past four years, the Saudi government had been reducing the number of local pilgrims by 50 per cent versus a 20 per cent decrease for foreigners, due to the expansion works which have been taking place at the mosque.

In 2007, a year before the government decided to reduce the capacity, more than 1.7 million foreign and 746,511 domestic pilgrims performed Hajj, a total of more than 2.4 million Hajj pilgrims.

However last year, 1,325,372 foreign and 537,537 domestic pilgrims performed Hajj, a total of 1,862,909 pilgrims. This was the lowest number of pilgrims recorded in the last ten years.