The first flight carrying pilgrims to Saudi Arabia for this year’s Hajj begins tomorrow.
On the very first day, three flights of Biman Bangladesh Airlines will leave for Jeddah carrying a total 1,474 pilgrims. Among them 580 are travelling under government arrangement and remaining under private arrangements.
On Tuesday, a 29-member government team, consisting of 12 administrative officers and 27 medical officers, flew to Jeddah. The teams will look after the overall management and health issues of the pilgrims in Saudi Arabia.
Flights of the Saudi Airlines start carrying pilgrims from September 8.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is scheduled to officially inaugurate the Hajj Programme 2013 at the Haji Camp in the capital’s Ashkona at 10am today.
A total of 89,175 Bangladeshis will perform the Hajj this year. Of them, 1,560 will travel under state arrangements, and the remaining 87,615 under private agencies.
Bazlul Hoque Biswas, Hajj officer of the religious affairs ministry, said all the preparations for launching the Hajj Programme have been completed. All the pilgrims who would travel under state arrangement, have already reported to the Ashkona Haji Camp.
The Saudi Embassy in Dhaka has so far issued visas to 21,590 Bangladeshis for staying in the country till October 4. Eight thousand more passports were sent to the embassy Thursday on visa purposes.
Officials said a 40-member team of the religious affairs ministry, led by Bazlul Hoque Biswas, had been working till midnight every day, carefully examining the personal information of the Hajis required for getting visas.
This year, the Saudi government has discouraged pilgrims above the age of 65 and below 12 years from travelling to the kingdom. Besides, those suffering from critical diseases like cancer, kidney and heart complications and high blood pressure were told not to perform the Hajj by the Saudi government because of the prevalence of a new fatal disease called MAR-CoV.
This is has caused many middle aged pilgrims to be uncertain about securing visas. Many pilgrims have been reportedly taking vaccines and health certificates from various healthcare facilities in the country.
Professor Dr Be-Nazir Ahmed, director of Communicable Disease Control (CDC) of the Directorate General of Health Services, told the Dhaka Tribune that the members of the medical team had been trained to look after the health issues of pilgrims.
Some of the non-government Hajj agencies have alleged that they had been finding it difficult to get air tickets from the two airlines.
However, Bazlul Hoque Biswas claimed that he had not received any such complaint from the agencies yet. He said a five-member committee, headed by a joint secretary, had been formed to look into the matter.
