Reza Mahmud :
Local hajj and travel agencies on Sunday urged the government to engage talks with the Saudi authorities to ease the visa curb imposed the Gulf nation on pilgrims.
Saudi Arabia has temporarily suspended visas for Muslims seeking to perform Umrah, in an attempt to slow the spread of coronavirus. It also suspended visas for tourists from countries with confirmed cases of the virus.
“The government should immediately start dialogue with Saudi authorities to reverse it’s visa curb decision on Bangladeshi pilgrims as no coronavirus patient has so far been detected here. The Hajj and travel agents are instantly facing huge financial losses for the Saudi decision,” Faruk Ahmed Sarder, Secretary General of Hajj Agencies Association Of Bangladesh (HAAB) told The New Nation on Sunday. According to him, Hajj Agencies have already incurred more than Tk 40 crore losses due to the sudden visa suspension. Agencies have collected visa for 10,000 Umrah pilgrims costing Tk 9.0 crore. They also collected air tickets which cost at Tk 20 crore and booked hotels in Saudi Arabia spending at Tk 10 crore. Agencies are bound to pay back the pilgrims, but how can we get the invested amount back? he questioned.
He however, expressed his optimism that the ban will be withdrawn soon.
Leaders from HAAB said that about 2.5 lakh Bangladeshi pilgrims performed Umrah in the 10 months of 2019. There was a target to reach the Umrah pilgrims’ number to three lakh in this year.
But the sudden Saudi’s ban on issuing Umrah visa created disappointment to the Hajj and travel agents in Bangladesh.
They said that the agencies have faced huge lose in business due to coronavirus outbreak in China and different countries in February.
In these circumstances, they rely only Umrah travelers to survive. About 1.5 lakh pilgrims have performed the Umrah in last two months of the new year.
But there are a huge uncertainty created about how long the Saudi Arab’s travel ban will be continued.
“The kingdom’s government has decided to [suspend] entry to the kingdom for the purpose of Umrah and visit to the Prophet’s Masjid temporarily,” the Saudi foreign ministry said in a statement.
Leaders from Hajj and travel agencies said if the ban stay for long, the 1,400 members of HAAB will be seriously losers.
“If the ban lasted long many of our members may compelled to close their business,’ said a leader of HAAB preferring anonymity.
He said, as there are no case of coronavirus infection recorded in Bangladesh, the government should start dialogue through diplomatic channel to pull the ban from Bangladeshi travelers and Umrah pilgrims.
While not clearly stating which countries that referred to, border authorities at Riyadh’s King Khalid international airport were on Thursday screening passengers from Iran, China, South Korea and Italy, from where clusters of coronavirus have spread across neighbouring borders.
Saudi Arabia has so far recorded no cases of the virus, but the number infected across the region has steadily increased, with patients quarantined in Bahrain, Kuwait, the UAE, Iraq and Lebanon.
