Special Hajj Pilgrims Start Leaving Medina For Mecca

A total of 6,300 special or non-regular hajj candidates began leaving Medina for Mecca on Wednesday (14/6) and all have worn ihrom clothes since the five-star hotel.

Head of the Special Hajj Supervision Section of PPIH Daker Madina Rudy N Ambari was met on the sidelines of the departure of the congregation at the Dallah Taibah Hotel, explaining that all the special Hajj pilgrims came from 59 special Hajj administrators (PIHK).

"There are still 600 calhajs who still live in Medina to carry out Arbain and make pilgrimages," said Rudy as quoted by ANTARA, Wednesday, June 14.

Rudy explained that the residence of non-regular pilgrims while in Medina was recorded at four to nine days, depending on the contract with PIHK.

Rudy explained that the total number of special Hajj pilgrims supervised by the Ministry of Religion during the 2023 Hajj pilgrimage was 6,827 people who were dispatched by 59 licensed PIHK Hajj travel services.

From data from the Ministry of Religion's Siskohat, the congregation was spread across around 16 five-star hotels in the Markaziyah Syimaliyah area.

This special congregation stays at the hotel with a difference in the room rental price variant of 300 to 500 Saudi Real or depending on the facilities, while on the consumption side, regular congregation catering is served food in the aluminum foil box three times a day.

These food boxes include fruit, desert food, and mineral water, while special Hajj food in the form of hotel cartes.

Congregants can choose at least three to four food variants, in the style of Indonesia, America, Europe, and Arabia, not including various fruits, beverage supplements.

Other facilities, such as worship guides, team of doctors, handling baggage and pilgrimage guides, are relatively the same as regular Hajj.

The average special hajj package is offered at a price of IDR 250 million to IDR 300 million per calhaj with the current waiting time of around seven years.

The PIHK service in organizing the pilgrimage is supervised by the Ministry of Religion through PPIH. The supervision is to ensure that the PIHK provides facilities and services as promised to the congregation.

Richan Mudzakar, Director of Arminareka said this year his party received a quota of 1,329 people and all of them could leave Medina for Mecca in one departure.

"Alhamdulillah, we moved from Medina to Mecca with 30 buses. We were in Medina for eight days and later in Mecca for eight days," said Richan.

The number of elderly people in the group, continued Richan, was 34 people wearing wheelchairs and all of them could be dispatched to Mecca, none were being treated at the Indonesian Hajj Health Clinic (KKHI) or in hospitals.