Saudi Arabia: ‘We received 99 million pilgrims over 54 years’

Saudi Arabia announced on Friday that it had received more than “99 million pilgrims over 54 years” as of last year’s Hajj season.

This was reported by the Saudi Press Agency, quoting the official data of the General Authority for Statistics. These numbers are expected to rise during this year’s Hajj season 1444 AH, which begins next Monday.

“The total number of pilgrims coming to the Kingdom since the General Authority for Statistics began recording the numbers in the year 1390 AH and until the last year 1443 AH (2022), is more than 99 million pilgrims,” according to the Kingdom.

The Kingdom expects more than two million pilgrims to arrive this season.

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On 19 June, the Minister of Hajj and Umrah Tawfiq Al-Rabiah shared in a televised clip: “We welcome the arrival of more than two million pilgrims from 160 countries.”

On 9 January, Al-Rabiah announced that the numbers and ages of pilgrims would return to the numbers before the spread of the coronavirus in 2020.

The number of pilgrims during the last season reached 899,353, including 779,919 from outside the Kingdom.

The 2021 Hajj season was limited to the participation of only 60,000 people from within the Kingdom, under strict health controls due to the pandemic outbreak at the time.

However, 2020 witnessed an exceptional season for Hajj, as the number of pilgrims was limited to about 10,000 from inside Saudi Arabia only, compared to about 2.5 million in 2019 worldwide.

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