Last batch of pilgrims leaves for Mecca

December 18, 2007
Story: Musah Yahaya Jafaru
THE last batch of Ghanaian pilgrims numbering about 400 left Accra for Jeddah at about 5:40 p.m. yesterday to perform the pilgrimage, after an 11-day ordeal at the Aviation Social Centre.
That covered the whole 2,700 Ghanaian pilgrims who secured their visas as approved by the Saudi Arabian Hajj authorities to perform this year’s Hajj.
The pilgrims used six flights comprising three by 747 KABO Airlines and three by Tristar Airlines.
Few of the pilgrims had earlier on left with the Emirate Air and Egypt Air following the delay in the arrival of the flights.
The last flight, the 747 KABO Airline with 505 capacity, covered all Ghanaian pilgrims, and even accommodated some Ghanaians who secured their visas in neighbouring Benin, as well as some Beninois nationals.
The airlifting of all the contingent of the Ghanaian pilgrims is described as a miracle by members of the Interim Hajj Management Committee, Hajj agents and some pilgrims.
The first batch of 362, all of them part of the 499 who could not embark on the journey last year, who were supposed to leave on December 5, 2007, started sleeping outside the Aviation Social Centre on December 6, 2007 and the other pilgrims also added to the number.
Reports of the arrival of flights kept flowing from the Hajj committee and the government for about one week, but no flight arrived until the very last Friday, December 14, when the Jeddah Airport was officially supposed to be closed, that the ALAMA Airline, which was contracted by the Hajj committee to airlift the pilgrims, brought in one aircraft.
Following pleas by the government and the operators of ALAMA Airline, authorities of the Jeddah Airport extended the deadline for the closure for Ghanaian pilgrims to Sunday midnight and further extended it to Monday midnight.
Some of the pilgrims lost hope at a point and left for their various homes, but their agents recalled them to embark on the pilgrimage when the flights started arriving.