Iran to Launch Interests Section in Saudi Arabia for Hajj
Mohammadi said that given the agreements reached with the Saudi side, the office will be launched before the start of dispatching pilgrims to the kingdom.
He also noted that some 3,000 individuals, including medical staff and others, will be sent to the Arab country to serve the Iranian pilgrims during Hajj.
According to the official, some 85,300 Iranians will make the trip to the Arab country for Hajj this year.
Last month, Mohammadi said dispatching Iranian Hajj pilgrims to Saudi Arabia will begin on July 16.
He said they will be sent to the kingdom in 576 batches, each consisting 85 to 160 individuals.
He added that the Iranian pilgrims will stay in Saudi Arabia between 28 and 45 days, depending on the conditions at Madinah and Jeddah airports.
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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