Afghan Voice Agency (AVA) - International Service: The Statistical Center of the Shrine of Hazrat Abbas, peace be upon him, announced the final number of Arbaeen pilgrims this year (2023).
According to Fars and according to the report of the shrine of Hazrat Abbas, 22 million 19 thousand 146 people from different countries participated in this year's Arbaeen ceremony.
Last year, the number of Arbaeen pilgrims was more than 21 million. It is predicted that the number of Arbaeen pilgrims will reach more than 40 million people in the next 10 years.
Also, on Sunday night of this week, Omar Al-Waili, the head of Iraq's border crossings organization, said in a television interview that the process of arrival and departure of Arbaeen pilgrims is going on smoothly and he added that the number of pilgrims entering through land and air border crossings of this country is 3.5 million.
He said that the border crossing of Zarbatiya (Mehran) sees the departure of 150,000 pilgrims from Iraq every day.
According to Al-Waeli, Shalamcheh border crossing has witnessed the arrival of 800 thousand pilgrims, Al-Sheib crossing (Chadaba) has witnessed the arrival of 400 thousand pilgrims, and Manzaria crossing (Khosravi) has witnessed the arrival of 350 thousand pilgrims so far.
He added that about 180 thousand pilgrims have also entered Iraq from Najaf Ashraf International Airport.
According to Tasnim and according to the report of Middle East News, the head of Iraqi Border Crossing Organization emphasized that 100,000 pilgrims entered the country from 3 border crossings of Iraqi Kurdistan region, 35,000 of them came from Haj Imran crossing.
He emphasized that the process of transferring pilgrims is very orderly and smooth and added that the coordination between Iran and Iraq has helped to speed up the process of returning pilgrims from the country.
On Sunday, the Ministry of Interior of Iraq announced that the measures for the entry of pilgrims from all border crossings of the country have been facilitated and since the beginning of the Arbaeen pilgrimage, 3 million 455 thousand 80 pilgrims have entered Iraq.
On the other hand, the governor of Karbala had announced the arrival of 14 million pilgrims to Karbala by the end of Saturday (September 3).
According to the official news agency of Iraq (WAA), "Nasif al-Khattabi", the governor of Karbala, said in a television interview on Sunday night (September 3) that this year's Arbaeen pilgrimage was the most crowded pilgrimage in the past years, and 14 million pilgrims had entered Karbala by the end of Saturday.
He said that the Prime Minister of Iraq is personally monitoring the process of managing pilgrimage affairs through closed-circuit cameras.
Al-Khattabi added that all service forces are on standby to start the return of pilgrims from Karbala and a thousand buses have been allocated to transport pilgrims on the southern axis.
He emphasized that the house of every citizen of Karbala has turned into a procession and service board for pilgrims and added that 28 thousand Hussaini processions are providing services to the pilgrims of Arbaeen Hussaini.
The governor of Karbala added that despite the high number of pilgrims, the pilgrimage process is going smoothly and we have not seen any problems.
It should be mentioned that along with pilgrims from other countries, tens of thousands of Afghans have also participated in the Arbaeen procession.