۱۰ فروردین ۱۴۰۳ |۱۹ رمضان ۱۴۴۵ | Mar 29, 2024
News ID: 351936
10 May 2018 - 18:30
Iran to send Hajj pilgrims starting from July ۱۶

Dispatching Iranian pilgrims to Saudi Arabia will begin on July 16, an official said. As many as 90,000 Iranians would take part in the 2018 Hajj.

Hawzah News Agency (Tehran, Iran) - Hamid Mohammadi, head of the Hajj and Pilgrimage Organization, said as many as 85,200 Iranians will make the pilgrimage this year.

He said they will be sent to the Arab country in 576 batches, each consisting 85 to 160 individuals.

 

 

The first batch of pilgrims are planned to leave the country for Hajj on July 16, he added.

According to the official, the Iranian pilgrims will stay in Saudi Arabia between 28 and 45 days, depending on the conditions at Madinah and Jeddah airports.

 

 

 

Mohammadi said in February that the country had sought an increased quota for the 2018 Hajj, adding that if the Saudi side agreed with it, 90,000 Iranians would make the pilgrimage this year.

He said some 1.3 million Iranians who signed up some ten years ago for attending Hajj are in line for making the pilgrimage.

 

 

Referring to the negotiations held with Saudi Arabia on Iranians' participation in this year's Hajj, he said the Hajj quota for Iran is expected to be the same as the previous year’s unless the Saudi side agrees with a request for an increase of 5,000 pilgrims.

In that case, Mohammadi said, as many as 90,000 Iranians would take part in the 2018 Hajj.

 

 

In 2017, some 85,000 pilgrims from Iran travelled to the holy sites in Saudi Arabia for Hajj.  

A year earlier, more than 1.8 million pilgrims attended Hajj, but Iranians stayed at home after tensions between Riyadh and Tehran boiled over following a deadly crush of people during the 2015 pilgrimage.

 

 

On September 24, 2015, thousands of people lost their lives in the deadly crush after Saudi authorities blocked a road in Mina during a ritual, forcing large crowds of pilgrims to collide.

The crush was the deadliest incident in the history of the pilgrimage. According to an Associated Press count based on official statements from the 36 countries that lost citizens in the disaster, more than 2,400 pilgrims were killed in the incident.

 

 

Saudi Arabia claims nearly 770 people were killed, but officials at Iran's Hajj and Pilgrimage Organization say about 4,700 people, including over 460 Iranian pilgrims, lost their lives. 

 

 

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