Pilgrims Back January 16

Ghanaian pilgrims to this year’s Hajj are scheduled to begin returning home on Wednesday January 17, 2007. Daily Guide has gathered that the Ghana Embassy in Saudi Arabia is unusually busy, performing functions which an embattled Ghana National Hajj Council (GNHC) should have been doing.

The Ghanaian envoy’s intervention during the crisis, which visited this year’s Hajj operations saw the airlift of over 400 stranded pilgrims from Accra, as he used the diplomatic channel to get an extension for the closure of the Jeddah Airport.

A task force put in place by the Embassy, according to our source, is working to ensure that pilgrims visiting Madina after Minna and Arafat do so without hindrance.

Arrangements for the pilgrims’ accommodation in Madina have been concluded and their luggage will be conveyed directly from Makkah to Jeddah, Daily Guide has also gathered. The aforementioned information, according to our source, has been communicated to all the pilgrims by the task force and the departure schedule displayed at the entrance of each floor for the benefit of the pilgrims.

Efforts by both the embassy and the task force are underway to ensure that the flight operations do not change the published schedule.

According to the return flight schedule, the first batch of pilgrims who left Accra by Egypt Air on 12/12/06, will leave Jeddah on 16/1/07 at 6.20am. The flight is expected to touch down in Accra at 10.22pm local time.

Another flight is scheduled to take place by the same airline for passengers who left on 14/12/06 at the same time with the same arrival time. Passengers who took off via a Sudan Air flight on 25/12/06 will leave Jeddah on 20/1/07 and arrive in Accra at 7.30pm.

Negotiations are ongoing however to ensure that the date is brought forward, according to the schedule. Egypt Air charter flight passengers of 19/12/06 will leave on 18/1/07 at 10.15pm and arrive at 3.35am.

20/12/06 passengers via Egypt Air charter will depart Jeddah at 4.35pm and arrive in Accra at 9.55pm, whereas those who left by the same airline’s flight on 21/12/06 will leave at 9.10pm and arrive 2.30am on 20/1/07.

Another batch of pilgrims who left Accra on 19/12/06 by Egypt Air charter will fly from Jeddah on 23/1/07 at 2.40am and arrive 23/1/07 at 10.45pm. There will be a second flight on the same day. An Egypt Air scheduled flight would convey pilgrims who took off on 21/12/06 at 11.30am and arrive 25/1/07 at 9.00pm.

A Ghana National Hajj Council airlift operations this year was beset with serious hitches, making it impossible for many pilgrims to undertake the lifelong religious exercise. So bad was the situation that Government had to intervene, and thus enabled over 400 stranded pilgrims to make it.

The remaining stranded pilgrims when it became evident that they could not be airlifted, finally left the Aviance holding area. This year’s Hajj in general has not witnessed the usual stampede which has always claimed lives, but word has it that two pilgrims died of old age with three hospitalized.

In a related development, one of the constituent parts of the Hajj Council, Coalition of Muslim Organisations, Ghana (COMOG) is scheduled to inaugurate a 15-member committee of inquiry into the trouble-ridden Hajj 2006/2007. The programme takes place at the Ghana Museum and Monuments Board Conference Hall in Accra, according to a release from COMOG.