Nearly 90,000 Iranians are expected to attend the Haj in Makkah this year, and were due to start arriving on Sunday, after Tehran boycotted the pilgrimage last year.
Around 800 pilgrims were due to leave Iran on three flights to nearby Madinah on Sunday, the director of the Haj at Iran’s Haj and Pilgrimage Organisation, Nasrollah Farahmand told state media. Approximately 86,500 Iranians are expected to attend the Haj in total this year and 800 co-ordinators have travelled to Saudi Arabia to help Iranians during the pilgrimage, he said.
Iran boycotted the Haj last year after hundreds of people, many of them Iranians, died in a crush at the pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia in 2015, and following a diplomatic rift.
In a speech to Haj organisers on Sunday, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called on Saudi Arabia to ensure the security of all pilgrims.
“The serious and constant issue for the Islamic Republic is the preservation of the security, dignity, welfare and comfort of all pilgrims, particularly Iranian pilgrims,” Khamenei said. Khamenei in his speech on Sunday also called on all pilgrims to show their reaction to the recent unrest at the Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem, according to his official website.
He did not specify what kind of reaction he expected pilgrims to show.
Iranian pilgrims wait at the Imam Khomeini airport in Tehran as they depart for the annual Haj pilgrimage to the holy city of Makkah, yesterday.
