A group of 250 prominent Muslim men and women from 10 African countries arrived in the Kingdom on Friday to perform Umrah as guests of the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman. They form the fourth group of pilgrims who are performing as part of the guest pilgrim program. The guests who arrived in successive batches on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday belong to Nigeria, Ghana, Niger, Tanzania, Benin, Uganda, Madagascar, Congo, Mozambique and Cameroon. Upon arrival at Prince Muhammad Bin Abdulaziz International Airport in Madinah, the guests were received by a number of officials. For their part, the guests expressed their thanks and appreciation to King Salman for his ongoing keenness to serve Islam and Muslims. The guest pilgrim program was launched 20 years ago to invite leading Islamic personalities around the world to perform Haj at the King's personal expense. The program was later expanded to include Umrah. Some 24,000 people from 150 countries have so far benefitted from the program, which is supervised by the Ministry of Islamic Affairs.
