120 Thousand Indonesian Hajj Pilgrims From Three Cities Take Advantage Of The Expansion Of The Makkah Route Initiative

The arrival of pilgrims from Indonesia. (Source: SPA)

JAKARTA - More than 120,000 Indonesian pilgrims benefit from this year's Makkah Route initiative, after the Saudi Arabia's flagship program was expanded to three cities across the country.

Being the country with the largest Muslim majority in the world, the number of Indonesian pilgrims who perform the pilgrimage, one of the five Islamic Rukun, is the largest every year.

In 2025, Saudi Arabia will provide Indonesia with a quota of 221,000 pilgrims. With the Hajj season expected to take place on June 4 and ending on June 9, special Hajj flights from Indonesia began on May 2.

More than half of the pilgrims departed under Makkah Route, a pre-travel program, launched by Saudi Arabia in 2019 to help pilgrims meet all visa, customs and health requirements at their home airports, saving a long wait period before and after arriving in Saudi Arabia.

"In Indonesia, Makkah Route is held at three airports, namely Soekarno-Hatta Airport in Jakarta, then in Solo and Surabaya," Ministry of Religion's Director of Domestic Hajj Services Mohammed Zain told Arab News, as quoted on May 23.

This initiative was expanded in 2024 to reach more Indonesian pilgrims in various regions in Indonesia.

This year, a total of 122,156 Indonesian pilgrims departing from the three selected cities will benefit from this program.

"This is very helpful in sorting out all the requirements for Hajj pilgrim documents, such as visas and passports, so that when pilgrims arrive in Saudi Arabia, they stay on the way to the bus and continue their spiritual journey safely and comfortably," explained Zain.

"We hope that for next year's Hajj, the Makkah Route initiative will be further expanded in Indonesia, so that we can offer higher quality Hajj services," he said.

In Jakarta, this program was implemented at a new Hajj and Umrah terminal at Soekarno-Hatta International Airport, which was inaugurated by President Prabowo Subianto in early May.

It is known that more than 125,000 pilgrims from Indonesia have arrived in Saudi Arabia as of Tuesday this week.

Indonesia is one of seven Muslim-majority countries, along with Pakistan, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Morocco, Turkey and Ivory Coast, where Saudi Arabia operates the Makkah Route initiative.