On October 30, Turkmen Muslims departed for Saudi Arabia, where they will celebrate the hajj, or pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina, the émigré opposition website gundogar.org reported, citing an official in the Turkmen Presidential Council for Religious Affairs.
The source would not indicate how many people had been granted permission to leave Turkmenistan for the hajj.
Meanwhile, the Oslo-based news service Forum 18 said that their sources indicated that only 180 people -- enough to fit on one plane -- had been granted permission to travel to Saudi Arabia, as in past years. In order to prevent overcrowding, Saudi Arabia assigns quotas to countries, and has given Turkmenistan a limit of 5,000, which is far from filled.
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