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International
Efforts To Fly Afghan Pilgrims To Mecca
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An Afghan pilgrim prays as he waits to get his passport and ticket to go to Hajj |
ABU
DHABI, Feb. 18 (News Agencies) - The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has joined the
last-minute international effort to fly thousands of Afghans to Mecca in time
for the hajj pilgrimage, the official WAM news agency reported Monday.
"More
than four aircraft will from Monday establish an air link to carry thousands of
Afghans blocked in Kabul," the Emirati agency said, reported AFP.
UAE
President Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan al-Nahyan had decided to lay on the flights as
Saudi Arabia announced that it too would provide four planes to bring in
pilgrims from Afghanistan.
One
of the Saudi flights landed in Jeddah, gateway to Mecca, overnight
Sunday-Monday, the Saudi Press Agency said.
Britain's
Royal Air Force is to run four Hercules C-130n transporter flights a day out of
Afghanistan from Monday until Wednesday, when the hajj begins, Britain's defense
ministry said.
"Our
assistance in this is essentially a humanitarian gesture but reflects our
determination to assist the Afghans in getting their country back on its
feet," a British ministry of defense spokesman said.
Pakistan
also sent a plane Sunday to collect 270 pilgrims. "Pakistan International
Air (PIA) sent an airbus from Karachi to pick up the stranded pilgrims from
Kabul following the Afghan government's request to President Pervez Musharraf
for help in its Hajj
operation," PIA spokesman Mohammad Latif told AFP. A second flight Sunday
would ferry a foreign television crew out of the Afghan capital, Latif said.
The
plight of an estimated 15,000 Afghan hajjis, frustrated by visa and flight
delays to their pilgrimage to Mecca, prompted one of Sunday's two PIA flights.
Pakistan
foreign ministry official Aziz Ahmed Khan met the Afghan pilgrims at Islamabad
airport and assured them Pakistan would extend "full assistance" to
Kabul in transporting the pilgrims to Saudi Arabia.
Afghan
interim leader Hamid Karzai said his government was working non-stop to provide
planes for the pilgrims, who have been angered at long waits for Saudi visas and
a number of cancelled flights.
He
said he expected "at least 10" flights Sunday to take some of the
15,000 Afghans planning to make the hajj pilgrimage to Mecca -- which is
required of able-bodied Muslims at least once in their lives if they have
sufficient means.
Although
the Saudis had set a Saturday midnight (2100 GMT) deadline for pilgrims arriving
by plane to take part in the annual hajj, the government had granted several
exemptions.
A
first group of around 890 Afghan pilgrims arrived in Saudi Arabia on Saturday
aboard two aircraft chartered by the Afghan government, AFP reported.
Karzai is pressing Saudi Arabia to extradite
three men allegedly involved in Thursday's murder of Kabul's aviation minister
and who reportedly fled to Jeddah as pilgrims. However Saudi officials insist
the three were not among Afghans who have arrived in the kingdom.
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