Millions head to Makkah for Haj in Saudi Arabian heat

MAKKAH, Saudi Arabia: Enormous crowds of worshippers thronged Makkah, Islam´s holiest city, on Friday for the biggest Haj pilgrimage in years, with more than two million expected to brave the scorching Saudi Arabian heat.

Pilgrims in white robes and sandals packed the ancient city, now dotted with luxury hotels and air-conditioned shopping malls, after flooding in on planes, buses and trains for the annual rites.

This year´s Haj -- one of the world´s biggest annual religious gatherings, with a tragic history of stampedes and other disasters -- could break attendance records, officials said.

“As the Haj draws near, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia prepares... for the largest Islamic gathering in history,” Minister of Haj and Umrah Tawfiq Al-Rabiah said in a video published by the ministry this week.

Rites include circling the Kaaba, the large black cube in Makkah´s Grand Mosque, praying on Mount Arafat and “stoning the devil” by throwing pebbles at three giant concrete walls representing Satan.

More than two million people from more than 160 countries will attend, Rabiah said -- a dramatic increase on the 926,000 from last year, when numbers were capped at one million following the Covid-19 pandemic.

About 1.5 million pilgrims from abroad had already arrived by Wednesday evening, Saudi authorities have said.

In 2019, about 2.5 million people took part. Only 10,000 were allowed in 2020, at the height of the coronavirus pandemic, rising to nearly 59,000 a year later.

Travellers from around the world have been pouring into Jeddah´s modernised airport, some of them using streamlined visa services to disembark from planes straight onto buses to their accommodation.

Some 24,000 buses will be in service to ferry the pilgrims, as well as 17 trains capable of moving 72,000 people every hour, officials said.

“It is an unbelievable feeling that is very emotional,” Souad bin Oueis, a 60-year-old Moroccan pilgrim, told AFP after arriving on her first visit to Saudi Arabia along with her husband.

This Haj will be the biggest since the requirement for women to be accompanied by male guardians was dropped in 2021.