Saudi Arabia will gradually begin receiving Umrah requests from abroad for vaccinated pilgrims starting August 9, the state news agency (SPA) said early Sunday.
It comes nearly a year-and-a-half after it had closed to overseas worshippers due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
With a capacity that would rise to 2 million pilgrims from 60,000 pilgrims per month, Mecca and Medina will start welcoming visitors from abroad to their mosques while maintaining COVID-19 precautionary measures.
An official in the Hajj and Umrah Ministry said domestic and overseas pilgrims will have to include authorised COVID-19 vaccination certificates along with their Umrah request.
Vaccinated pilgrims from countries that Saudi Arabia includes on its entry-ban list will have to be institutionally quarantined upon arrival, the report added.
Umrah, a pilgrimage to Islam's two holiest sites that is undertaken at any time of the year, was reopened in October for domestic worshippers.
UN Chief warns two-state solution slipping away amid West Bank expansion
Pakistan sends helicopters, drones to end desert standoff; 58 dead
Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, son of late Libyan leader, shot dead
Sudanese army says it's broken siege of famine-stricken Kadugli
WHO says first five patients evacuated via Gaza's Rafah crossing
Russia pounds Ukraine with record number of missiles, Zelenskyy says
Paris prosecutor's cybercrime unit searches X office
Spain to ban social media access for children under 16
