The Ministry of Haj has ordered an Umrah operator to relocate 92 Egyptian pilgrims to a new building as contracted and compensate them for the days they spent at a run-down building, said Adel Balkhair, Assistant Minister for Umrah Affairs. The ministry's order came after the pilgrims filed a complaint against the Umrah company that breached a contract with them and allegedly swindled them out of SR360,000. The pilgrims were housed in a cheaply-built and run-down building of six floors on a pothole-laden street on a dangerous rocky hill where 16 people were made to share one room. A committee from the Ministry of Haj visited the location and reported the difficulties the pilgrims had to go through, Balkhair said. The representatives of the company in Saudi Arabia and Egypt were summoned for investigation. The contract stipulated that the pilgrims would stay at a hotel in the vicinity of the Grand Mosque, the complaint said. “The conditions of the building are unbearable; dirty with bad smells and very poor furnishing and water leakages almost everywhere,” a pilgrim said. The majority of the pilgrims refused to stay at the building and preferred staying in the Grand Mosque. They were too old to take the hassle of going back and forth between the Haram and the building. In addition to frequent power blackouts at the building, it was so far away from the Grand Mosque that the old pilgrims decided to stay in the Haram most of the time. “You have to be very fit to take the long walk up and down the hill,” said Haji Muhammad Taraf. The pilgrims paid SR4,000 each to the company, but they were denied contracted services, he said. “I could smell sewage around me,” said an aged pilgrim Fatmah Mustafa. The air-conditioning units were out of order in this scorching heat, she said. “We demand full refund or honoring the contract.” Rogue Umrah operators are damaging the image of the Kingdom's Umrah services, she concluded. The case has been referred to a committee for further investigation of the Umrah company, Balkhair said. – Okaz __
