Istanbul/Agency Caucasus – It is not long after the Christmas holidays left a total number of 1050 Caucasian Muslim pilgrims stranded for days in Trabzon, a northern Black Sea city of Turkey, that reporters heard further news of the Ingush Muslim pilgrims left unable to move outside Saudi Arabia.
Bad organization has left 750 Ingush Muslim pilgrims unable to return home from Saudi Arabia, though they had paid for their return tickets beforehand.The Ingush Muslim pilgrims said in their letter to the Web Site of Ingushetiya.ru that they had no idea when they could return home: "We are a group of 750 Ingush Muslim pilgrims here. We travelled to Mecca by using the flight service of Dagestan’s airlines. Although we have some among us who need emergent help, we don’t have the necessary medical staff with us. We were normally scheduled to return home on a day between December 24 and 27. The travel agency officials are, however, blaming someone else. Neither the Head of Russian Organization for Muslim Pilgrimage Gamzayev nor the Assistant Ambassador to Mecca Bagaudinov responded to our requests for help and information! We don’t have any idea whatsoever how much longer we will wait here; the travel agency officials have been making us wait in here over the past two weeks."
"Although we paid for our tickets before, we really don’t know when exactly we will be back. We were told that we would be informed after January 10. Well, there are exhausted and ill people among us. We tend to remain patient in the face of the mistreatment we have been subject to," Isa Korigov told Ingushetiya.ru. Karigov comes from the Sagopshi village of Malgobek province.
Ruslan, who said he was the representative of the Ingush Muslim pilgrims, called on the Russian administration to do something to help them return home. ÖZ/FT
