ISLAMABAD: New Zealand and Sudan's pilgrims had to take the longest air and ship journey to reach Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to perform Hajj.
A total of 1,325,189 Hajis came by air, 36,094 by land and 12,923 by sea. New Zealand pilgrims had to spent 24 hours on plane due to lack of direct flight from the country to Saudi Arabia. New Zealand has sent 400 pilgrims for Hajj this year.
Even after traveling on speedy ships, Sudanese have taken 10 hours to reach the Kingdom. About 12,000 Sudanese pilgrims, half of the country's Hajj quota of 24,000, arrived by sea, Saudi gazette quoted.
Indonesia has sent the largest number of 186,000 pilgrims this year after a 20 percent cut imposed by the Saudi government because of the Haram expansion project.
The country used to send 225,000 pilgrims before the imposition of 20 percent cut in the number of Hajjis.
Georgia sent the smallest number of 38 pilgrims from a quota of 300 while the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago sent 50 pilgrims for this Hajj.
From China only 1,000 pilgrims arrived from a quota of 14,000.
Comments
Comments are closed.