The Indonesia Religious Affairs Ministry has issued its travel plan for Indonesian pilgrims participating in the 2023 Hajj season, with the process scheduled to start in late May and end by early August.
“The Hajj travel plan consists of phases of Hajj pilgrimage, starting from the admittance of pilgrims to the Hajj dormitory, to their departure to the Holy Land, and the final repatriation of pilgrims from Medina to Indonesia,” said director general of Hajj and Umrah at the ministry Hilman Latief, according to a statement received here on Monday.
As per the travel plan signed by Latief on January 16, 2023, Hajj pilgrims will be admitted to their dormitories from May 23, and the first flight to Medina, Saudi Arabia —where the pilgrims will undergo Arbain (attend 40 consecutive communal prayers at Medina’s Prophet’s Mosque) — is expected to take off on May 24.
Meanwhile, pilgrims in the second departure batch will be admitted to their Hajj dormitories from June 7 onwards and their flights to Jidda will begin from June 8.
The wuquf (obligatory stay in the Arafat Plains) that all pilgrims need to perform to complete their Hajj ritual will start on June 27.
The repatriation of Indonesian Hajj pilgrims will start on July 4, while the final day of the Hajj pilgrims’ return to Indonesia will be August 3.
The embarkation and repatriation of Indonesian Hajj pilgrims will take place over a total of 30 days, divided equally between the first and second batches, and the maximum stay of Hajj pilgrims in Saudi Arabia will be 42 days.
Earlier, Minister Yaqut Cholil Qoumas said that Indonesia has been granted a Hajj pilgrim quota of 221 thousand by the Saudi Arabian authority, as per a bilateral memorandum of understanding inked on January 9.
The quota would be allotted to 203,320 pilgrims participating in the regular program and 17,680 pilgrims in the special program, Qoumas noted. He added that 62,879 Hajj pilgrims this year will be aged above 65 years.
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