Saudi Arabia Removes Restrictions on Hajj Pilgrims Three Years after COVID Outbreak
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Saudi Arabia announced on Monday that it intends to restore the number of pilgrims to pre-pandemic levels during the upcoming Hajj season.
Saudi Arabia has announced that it will no longer impose limits on the number of pilgrims for this year's Hajj after three years of restrictions to curb the COVID-19 pandemic, according to TRT.
"The number of pilgrims will return to what it was before the pandemic, without any age limit," Minister of Hajj and Umrah Tawfiq al Rabiah told reporters in Riyadh on Monday.
This year’s Hajj pilgrimage, which all able-bodied Muslims with the means are required to perform at least once in their lifetime, is scheduled for June.
Before the pandemic in 2019, about 2.5 million people took part in the rituals. For the next two years, numbers were drastically curtailed due to the pandemic.
In 2022, nearly 900,000 pilgrims, including some 780,000 from abroad, were welcomed to Islam's holiest cities of Mecca and Medina.
At that time, they had to be aged under 65. They were also required to be vaccinated against COVID-19 and to present a negative test.