Frustrated Afghans Get a Lift to Mecca

Britain said Sunday that it had sent four Hercules aircraft to Kabul to help airlift hundreds of Afghans to Saudi Arabia for the annual hajj, or pilgrimage.

Answering a request from Afghanistan’s interim prime minister, Hamid Karzai, an Afghan aviation authority official said Saudi Arabia had sent a Boeing 747 and Pakistan had sent an Airbus A-310 to help transport pilgrims.

The United Arab Emirates was sending several aircraft to carry 1,000 pilgrims, UAE’s official news agency, WAM, reported.

About 8,000 frustrated Muslim pilgrims have been camped out in freezing temperatures at the Kabul airport and the city’s main mosque for days waiting for flights for the journey to the holy city of Mecca.

A spokesman for the British Ministry of Defense said four C-130 Hercules aircraft would transport about 500 pilgrims to Saudi Arabia on Sunday and would repeat the operation today and Tuesday.

The pilgrims, from all over Afghanistan, have paid $1,500 each for tickets to make the journey, a small fortune for ordinary Afghans.

But many of the promised flights have failed to materialize, leading to scenes of chaos at the airport. On Sunday, a rowdy crowd surged toward the heavily guarded departure terminal, shattering a huge window.

“I’ve been here for three nights,” said Khoja Abdullah, a stooped man wrapped in a gray blanket. “There is no order. Everyone is trying to push in.”

Karzai told reporters Sunday that he was trying to ensure that all the pilgrims would be able to make the journey.

“In the past two days I have done nothing but hajj, the whole government has stopped to work on the hajj, so everybody’s working on the hajj to make sure the whole thing takes place,” Karzai said.

He said Saudi Arabia had agreed to extend a Sunday deadline to allow the Afghan pilgrims to reach Mecca.