"We deplore this bad service given to our Hajj pilgrims in Mina," Wisnu Wijaya Adiputra, a member of the House's Hajj Monitoring Team, noted in a press statement that ANTARA received here, Wednesday.
Due to the tents' limited capacities, the high numbers of male and female pilgrims had to stay in similar tightly packed tents without gender segregation during their recent Hajj rituals in Mina, he revealed.
Adiputra pointed out that several pilgrims, notably the elderly, opted to stay outside to avoid the packed tents whose conditions resembled "refugee camps."
The House's Hajj Monitoring Team also found a tent with a capacity of 80 pilgrims in Mina, which was forced to accommodate around 1,200 pilgrims, he added.
To prevent the recurrence of such conditions in next year's Hajj season, Adiputra urged the Indonesian Religious Affairs Ministry to conduct a thorough evaluation.
Apart from the House's finding, Religious Affairs Minister Yaqut Cholil Qoumas claimed that the holding of Indonesia's 1445 Hijri Hajj Pilgrimage had run well and successfully, as the regular quota of some 213,320 Hajj pilgrims could be absorbed optimally.
Only 45 pilgrims from the regular quota could not depart for the Hajj Pilgrimage, as people who replaced them failed to get the Hajj visa on time, he revealed.
He claimed that this unabsorbed quota was recorded as "the smallest in more than a decade of organizing the Hajj pilgrimage."
As reported earlier, for this year's Hajj season, Indonesia obtained a quota of 241 thousand Hajj pilgrims through an agreement reached with the Saudi government on January 8, 2024.
The total figure comprised 221 thousand people making the pilgrimage under the initial quota and 20 thousand pilgrims under the additional quota approved by the King of Saudi Arabia.
The additional quota was secured by President Joko Widodo during a bilateral meeting with Saudi Arabian Prime Minister Mohammed bin Salman al-Saud in October 2023.
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Translator: Fauzi, Rahmad Nasution
Editor: Aditya Eko Sigit Wicaksono
Copyright © ANTARA 2024
