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S.Leone Muslims to lose free Libyan tickets to Mecca

17 September 2011 02:30 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. Hundreds of poor Sierra Leonean Muslims have had to abandon their pilgrimage to Mecca this year as political turmoil in countries like Libya left them without sponsors, a cleric said Friday, APA reports quoting AFP.

Sheikh Minkalu Adams of the Allied Muslim League (AML) said nations like Libya, Egypt and Syria hit by "Arab Spring" uprisings, would traditionally provide all expenses paid trips for poor Muslims to make the pilgrimage.

"These pilgrims are traumatised as they have no money and were banking on free tickets coming from the three countries," Adams told AFP.

He said some 300 Muslims who had been on a register to benefit from Middle Eastern largesse would now be left out of the annual pilgrimage.

"These countries are preoccupied with political problems and are not thinking of extending help," said Musa Sillah, who carried out the Hajj on a free ticket last year.

Libya has been the biggest donor over the years, and in 2010 sponsored about 350 pilgrims from Sierra Leone who were flown to Mecca on a Libyan jet, said Haroun Rashid, spokesman of the Muslim organisation Jihad Movement which received 70 free tickets in 2010.

Another Muslim cleric, El Haj Mohamed Sanusi noted: "The benevolence was directly from Colonel (Moamer) Kadhafi but now his government has been overthrown and the current National Transitional Council is caught up in the struggle to solidify its position."

Some 500 Sierra Leonean Muslims will make the trip on a government-regulated voyage in October, at a cost of $3,850 (2,700 euro) per pilgrim.

About four million of the nation’s six million citizens are Muslim, but few can afford the trip to Islam’s holiest city.

"The cost is a $150 increase on last year’s price due to the volatile situation in the Middle East," explained Deputy Social Welfare Minister, Rosaline Sankoh.

The Sierra Leone government last year banned private Hajj agents after several scams saw citizens losing all their money.