Corona May Hike Price Of Hajj 2020… And Quarantine Won’t Be Free Of Charge!

The cost of the Hajj pilgrimage this year is expected to witness an unprecedented rise that will be imposed by the new health and medical services that Saudi Arabia is poised to propose in the style of quarantine in the wake of the outbreak of Corona virus and its increasing spread across the world.

This comes at a time when Algerian pilgrims involved in the lottery this season are awaiting the government’s announcement about the pilgrimage’s final cost after a projected joint ministerial meeting.

According to Echorouk’s sources from the National Office of Hajj and Umrah, it is expected that the cost of the Hajj pilgrimage will rise this year due to the Corona virus, and the accompanying preventive measures that are required from the Saudi authorities that receive more than a million and a half pilgrims coming from different parts of the world, in terms of medical services provided to the pilgrims, as well as with regard to quarantine that lasts more than 14 days, which are costly measures, which will not be free of charge according to the same sources.

This untoward contingency would thus contribute to hiking the cost of the Hajj pilgrimage, in case the Corona virus would have increased in number.

To this effect, the Minister of Religious Affairs and Endowments, Youcef Belmehdi, assured the Algerian people involved in the Hajj season for this season, that the cost of the pilgrimage this year will not be far from the cost of the previous season, adding in a press statement that the joint ministerial meeting that will take place soon after the return of the preparatory delegation from the Holy places of Islam in Saudi Arabia and the submission of its fact-finding report.

“We have done a great deal to ensure that the cost remains the same as in previous years,” he sais.
The Office of Hajj and Umrah quickly programmed plans and timetables to enable pilgrims to retrieve their money from the airlines agreed upon following the temporary freezing of Umrah by the Saudi authorities following the spread of Corona virus and the expansion of the epidemic, as confirmed in this regard by “Air Algerie Airlines, Saudi Airlines, Turkish Airlines, Jordanian Airlines, Egyptian Airlines and Tunisian Airlines.

These airline companies stated: “We are committed to returning the sums of flights that were canceled due to the Corona virus, according to the procedures in force and in accordance with the contracts concluded with the travel and tourism agencies.

This came during a meeting supervised by the Director General of the National Office of Hajj and Umrah, Youssef Azouza, at the Office headquarters in Algiers, which was attended by all airlines approved to transport pilgrims.

This broad-based meeting focused on the latest developments of the procedure for suspending Umrah trips taken by the Saudi authorities in the framework of measures to ward off the spread of the new Corona virus to the Holy Places of Islam.