Saudi authorities have contracted a specialized security company to organize the boarding of pilgrims onto Mashaer Railway trains during this Haj season, said Saud bin Hamdan Al-Dikri, director of projects at the Ministry of Municipal and Rural Affairs.
“This is company is specialized in crowd management,” he said, adding that it would train Saudis in Haj security services.
The company has already recruited about 2,000 Saudis who speak languages other than Arabic for Haj duty. “It will provide intensive training for a month,” Al-Dikri said.
The newly trained Saudis will be deployed at Mashaer Railway stations at the holy sites beginning Oct. 12 when the railway begins operating its regular service.
Al-Dikri said the move was aimed at ensuring the safety and security of pilgrims who travel on the railway’s trains and preventing pilgrims who are not authorized to use them from boarding the carriages.
A stampede occurred at a railway station last year, where thousands of pilgrims without tickets tried to board the train.
A top government official says more than 150,000 ticketless and undocumented pilgrims rushed to the station, causing a stampede, while pilgrims with tickets and Haj permits waited for their turn to board.
The situation caused the suspension of trains for 90 minutes, resulting in a delay in the movement of pilgrims. Trains were forced to carry 680,000 pilgrims, going over the 500,000-people capacity, the official said.
This year, authorities have imposed a 25 percent cut in the number of pilgrims traveling by trains compared to last year.
“The ministry plans to reduce the capacity of trains to 377,000 pilgrims this year as part of its measures to avoid repeating travel delays and other issues that arose last year,” said another official.