Saudi to Open Umrah to Vaccinated Foreign Worshipers

Saudi Arabia will gradually begin receiving Umrah pilgrimage requests from abroad for vaccinated pilgrims starting August 9 after about a year and a half of not receiving overseas worshippers due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the state news agency reported early on Sunday.

With a capacity that would rise to 2 million pilgrims from 60,000 pilgrims per month, Mecca and Medina will start welcoming visitors from abroad to their mosques while maintaining Covid-19 precautionary measures.  

An official in the Hajj and Umrah Ministry said domestic and overseas pilgrims will have to include authorized Covid-19 vaccination certificates along with their Umrah request.

Vaccinated pilgrims from countries that Saudi Arabia includes on its entry-ban list will have to be institutionally quarantined upon arrival, the report added.

Umrah, a pilgrimage to Islam's two holiest sites undertaken at any time of the year, was reopened in October for domestic worshippers after it was totally upon the pandemic outbreak.

For the second year in a row, Islam's holiest sites' home had hosted a limited-numbered, domestic Haj pilgrimage in July.