SHAFAQNA– The administrator of the two holy mosques in the holy cities of Mecca and Medina, Saudi Arabia, has announced the implementation of a special plan for the 2019 Hajj season.
Saudi state-run news website Okaz reports more than 10,000 male and female staff are employed for this special plan and serve the pilgrims in different sectors that include services, management, human sources, guidance, maintenance of the equipment, technology and media.
The administrator of Mecca’s Great Mosque and Medina’s Prophet’s Mosque (Majis al-Nabawi), Abdul Rahman Al-Sudais says 140 packages are organized for this year’s Hajj season in a bid to create proper atmosphere for the pilgrims to perform their Hajj pilgrimage while they receive all needed services.
Al-Sudais adds that around 210 doors and 28 series of escalators at the Masjid al-Haram (the Great Mosque of Mecca) have been fixed and 38 entrances are allocated specifically to people with disabilities. Additional services are prepared for the old and the disabled to enable them easily perform their most important life-time religious duty. Experts with sign language will also convey speeches and preaches at the holy mosques to people with hearing-imparity.
Abdul Rahman Al-Sudais notes that some of the Great Mosque’s expansion projects will become operational for the first time this year and estimates some 107,000 Muslim pilgrims would circle al-Ka’aba at every hour.
It is estimated that more than two million Muslims from all around the world will attend the 2019 Hajj ceremony in Saudi Arabia. This year, the three main days of the pilgrimage fall in early August.
This text originally published by okaz.com.sa and Shafaqna Farsi, translated by Shafaqna English.
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