MINA, 18 December 2007 — Saudi authorities have taken all measures to ensure the safety of hundreds of thousands of pilgrims who converged on the holy sites for the annual Haj, officials said at a press conference held jointly by the Ministry of Interior, the Ministry of Health and the Civil Defense in Mina yesterday.
“Our top priority is the safety of the pilgrims,” said Gen. Mansour Al-Turki, the Interior Ministry spokesman, answering a question on the strict measures taken on entrances leading into the holy sites.
Al-Turki added that the traffic movement up until yesterday scored better results than in previous years.
Regarding an incident involving pilgrims protesting on the Jordan-Saudi border for not being allowed entry, the Interior Ministry spokesman said that he did not have enough information on that particular development but it appeared that there were people who took advantage of pilgrims by signing them up to bogus Haj delegations.
The pilgrim’s journey from Makkah to Mina started Sunday night. By yesterday afternoon around 80 percent of the pilgrims reached Mina, said Al-Turki.
Five-hour-long traffic lines were reported at entrances leading to Makkah from Taif and Jeddah.
“In the future we are looking at building new parking lots just on the outskirts of the holy sites,” Al-Turki said.
“There has been no major incident reported up until this hour,” he added.
The total number of pilgrims this year will be announced in the coming days, said Al-Turki. “But there are around 1,700,000 pilgrims from abroad and approximately 150,000 from inside the Kingdom until now,” he said.
The Kingdom is working gradually to develop the capacity of the holy sites and the holy mosques, he added.
Health Ministry spokesman Dr. Khaled Al-Mirghalani said that the fine weather has helped in the well being of the pilgrims.
Maj. Abdullah Al-Harthi, official spokesman for the Civil Defense, said that no fire-related accidents had been reported thus far. “We have made all preparations and conducted a number of drills in case it rains,” said Al-Harthi.
