The Government of Sierra Leone has broken silence on the issue surrounding the stranding of twelve Sierra Leonean pilgrims who left the shores of Sierra Leone on Monday at Jeddah airport in Saudi Arabia.
Sources from the Ministry of Information and Communications say the twelve Sierra Leonean pilgrims with electronic visa acquisitions briefly ran into problems at the Jeddah airport due to late payment alongside 129 Guineans and about 200 Senegalese and 300 Nigerians.
The sources continued that the swift intervention of the Vice President of Sierra Leone who superintends the hajj visit to the Holy Land of Mecca ensured their that electronic visas were secured and they were later allowed to perform the hajj.
The Ministry sources damned rumours making rounds that the pilgrims have been denied visas, adding that no pilgrim whose papers were processed by the Government of Sierra Leone was denied entry into Saudia Arabia.
News broke out twenty four hours after the 900 pilgrims left on board a chartered flight from Saudi Arabia that the pilgrims were stranded at the Jeddah Airport, and that they were denied entry to Saudi Arabia to perform the hajj.
The Government of the New Direction is successfully organizing a peaceful and problem free Hajj for the second consecutive time since they came into power.
The 2019 pilgrims have culminated into the dispatch of 900 pilgrims, 350 of the pilgrims benefitted from scholarships while the rest paid for themselves.