Saudi Arabia is ramping up a crackdown on unregistered worshippers at subsequent week’s hajj pilgrimage, a 12 months after a whole bunch perished in scorching situations.
Common raids, drone surveillance and a barrage of textual content alerts are aimed toward rooting out unauthorised guests hoping to mingle among the many crowds in and across the holy metropolis of Mecca.
The easy message, “No hajj with no allow”, is being blared out in a relentless marketing campaign promoted nationwide at buying centres, on billboards and throughout media platforms.
Final 12 months, 1,301 pilgrims, most of them unregistered and missing entry to air-conditioned tents and buses, died as temperatures soared to 51.8 levels Celsius (125.2 levels Fahrenheit).
“Because the finish of final season, we realised the largest problem is stopping unauthorised pilgrims from undermining the success of the hajj season,” mentioned one official serving to organise the hajj, requesting anonymity.
The hajj, one of many 5 pillars of Islam, should be accomplished by all Muslims with the means not less than as soon as.
But official permits are allotted to nations by means of a quota system and distributed to people through a lottery.
Even for individuals who can acquire them, the steep prices make the irregular route — which prices hundreds of {dollars} much less — extra enticing.
Saudi officers mentioned 83 % of those that died final 12 months didn’t have official hajj permits. Temperatures of as much as 44C (111F) are forecast subsequent week.
To hunt out unregistered pilgrims, Saudi authorities have rolled out a brand new fleet of drones to observe entrances into Mecca.
Safety forces have additionally raided a whole bunch of flats seeking folks hiding out within the space.
An Egyptian engineer dwelling in Mecca, who spoke on the situation of anonymity, mentioned his constructing was raided a number of occasions in current weeks.
“Law enforcement officials in uniform got here to my house twice and requested to see my and my spouse’s residency permits,” he instructed AFP.
“Nearly in all places, we’re being requested to point out residency or work permits in Mecca. The safety presence is unprecedented.”
The issue of illicit pilgrims has develop into acute since Saudi Arabia loosened visa restrictions consistent with financial reforms, attempting to draw extra tourism and enterprise.
A whole bunch of hundreds of individuals are believed to have used household and vacationer visas, as an alternative of the designated hajj visa, to enter the nation annually.
Saudi Arabia is now attempting to chop off the issue at supply, proscribing multiple-entry visas for residents of a number of nations since January.
Household and vacationer visas have been additionally barred to nationals of greater than 10 nations, together with Egypt, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh and Jordan.
Umar Karim, an knowledgeable on Saudi affairs on the College of Birmingham, mentioned officers beforehand targeted on “deterring folks however not stopping them” from coming earlier than hajj.
“Saudi authorities have seen that after these individuals are inside the dominion, stopping them from bodily getting into Mecca is a tough job even when an enormous variety of safety officers are deployed,” he added.
For the previous month, entry into Mecca has been restricted to people with work and residency permits.
Many individuals in Mecca have been pressured to ship their wives and kids, who lack the correct visas, out of the town.
Pilgrims coming for umrah — comparable rites that may be carried out year-round — have additionally been required to go away.
In the meantime, fines for a bootleg hajj have doubled to twenty,000 Saudi riyals ($5,333), with violators going through a 10-year ban from the nation.
These discovered to be harbouring and serving to unauthorised pilgrims may be fined as much as 100,000 riyals ($26,666).
“All of that is aimed toward guaranteeing that Mecca is reserved completely for authorised pilgrims throughout the Hajj season,” the official added.
Residents of Mecca instructed AFP that the crowds there have noticeably thinned in comparison with earlier years.
Nevertheless, officers mentioned on Tuesday that greater than one million pilgrims had already arrived in Saudi Arabia for the hajj.
Final 12 months’s hajj deaths have been a high-profile instance of the havoc wrought by warmth in 2024, which the Copernicus Local weather Change Service mentioned was the most popular 12 months ever recorded.
Whereas the pilgrimage, which follows a lunar calendar, will ultimately shift to the cooler winter season, reduction might be short-term.
A 2019 research revealed by the journal Geophysical Analysis Letters mentioned due to local weather change and the timing of the hajj, warmth stress for pilgrims will exceed the “excessive hazard threshold” from 2047 to 2052, and 2079 to 2086.
AFP
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