“There are no security disorders in this pilgrimage, however [the reduction] is about protecting pilgrims from the danger of the pandemic,” said Khalid bin Qarar Al-Harbi, Saudi Arabia’s director of public safety.
Pilgrims should wear a mask and practice a series of devoted rites that take place over five days in the holy city of Mecca and its landscapes in western Saudi Arabia.
Those who decided to participate in the Hajj were subjected to temperature checks and placed in a brief quarantine before the rites beginning On Wednesday.
State media showed that the physical state disinfected the pilgrims’ luggage, and pilgrims said they had been given electronic bracelets to allow the government to control their prices.
The workers, armed with brooms and disinfectant, were seen cleaning around the Kaaba, the design in the center of the Grand Mosque wrapped in a cloth embroidered in black gold to which Muslims around the world pray.
Touching or embracing the Kaaba, Islam’s holiest site, is forbidden this year. All pilgrims should also maintain a physical distance of 1.5 meters (five feet) prayers.
The Hajj government has reported the status quo of various fitness facilities, cell clinics and ambulances to satisfy the wishes of pilgrims. The foreign press is excluded from this year’s Hajj, a massive global media event, while the government restricts access to Mecca.
First, the Saudi government had said that only a thousand pilgrims would be allowed to live in the kingdom to perform the Hajj, but local media said that up to 10,000 pilgrims would be allowed to participate.
About 70% of pilgrims are foreigners living in Saudi Arabia, while the rest will be Saudi citizens, the government said.
All the faithful had to go through a coronavirus check before arriving in Mecca and will also have to be quarantined after the pilgrimage as the number of cases in the kingdom approaches 270,000, one of the largest epidemics in the Middle East.
According to a program document from the Hajj Ministry, they won elaborate convenience kits, sterilized pebbles for a stoning ritual, disinfectants, masks, a prayer mat and the “ihraam”, a seamless white garment worn by pilgrims.
“I hoped, among millions of Muslims, to get approval,” Emirati pilgrim Abdullah al-Kathiri said in a video broadcast through the Saudi media ministry.
“It’s an indescribable Feeling Array … this is my first pilgrimage.”
Hajj’s ministry said non-Saudi citizens from the kingdom of some 160 countries had participated in the online variety process, but did not specify how many other people they had requested.
Some disappointed applicants complained that the government-run lottery was obviously unexplained and that they had not been given any explanation for their rejection.
The government has reduced the pilgrimage because it may be a primary source of contagion, but this resolution will worsen the kingdom’s economic crisis, analysts say.
Typically, the pilgrimage is estimated to make a contribution of $12 billion to Saudi Arabia’s gross domestic product (GDP).
Saudi Arabia, which already faces a sharp fall in oil costs due to a global call collapse through coronavirus closures, has instituted austerity measures, tripling a value-added tax and cutting public officials’ allowances.
The virus has also affected companies dependent on the pilgrimage that generate thousands of jobs in Mecca, from travel agents to street hairdressers and souvenir shops.
The International Monetary Fund expects the kingdom’s GDP by 2020 to contract by 6.8%, as the pandemic and the fall of oil wreak havoc.