Okaz/Saudi Gazette

JEDDAH — The Passports Department (Jawazat) has deployed a thousand officials to serve pilgrims at King Abdulaziz International Airport in Jeddah. Col. Saad Al-Showshan, senior Jawazat official at KAIA, said the pilgrims are being served at 140 counters at the airport.

The department is equipped with the latest technology and the staff is fully trained to receive the pilgrims, he said.

Till late Friday, 570,139 pilgrims have already arrived in the Kingdom. Out of this, 28 pilgrims have died due to various reasons.

Pilgrims arriving by air amounted to 566,810 while 5,849 arrived by land and 480 arrived by sea. The number of pilgrims has increased by 73,117 in comparison to last year. That is an increase by 14.5 percent.

Dr. Muhammad Filimban, a senior physician, said the Ministry of Health has its services and staff present at the airport to serve the pilgrims whenever needed.

Pilgrims arrive at the airport through 15 different terminals and the doctors vaccinate the ones coming from countries affected by infectious diseases.

There are also four health centers operating 24/7.

The doctors also review the pilgrims’ health certificates to ensure they are valid.

Meanwhile, the Makkah Pilgrims Housing Committee has issued 144 new licenses to provide housing for 85,801 pilgrims.

The newly licensed housing units include 19,544 rooms with a total area of 344,325 sq. meters.

The number of renewed licenses has now gone up to 3,688 for providing housing to 1,625,245 pilgrims.

These housing units include a total of 339,540 rooms with a total area of 6,618,525 sq. meters.

Deputy head of the Pilgrims Housing Committee, Mazen Al-Sinari, said most of the housing units provided to pilgrims are concentrated in Al-Aziziyah area of the holy city.

The second area with the highest number of licensed pilgrims’ housing is Al-Misfalah.

The third area is Al-Otaibiyah. The fourth area is Al-Haram and the fifth area is Al-Rusaifah.