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Immigration Department sets up special passport desk to ease annual Islamic pilgrimage to Makkah

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BY: FRIDAY BULLETIN

NAIROBI—A special desk has been established at the Immigration Department to ease the application process for Muslims planning to go for the annual Islamic pilgrimage to Makkah, Saudi Arabia.

The desk has been set up at the Immigration department headquarters at Nyayo House in Nairobi.

Addressing residents during the closing ceremony of the annual Quran Memorization Competition held at Masjid Ibn Qayimin Garissa Town, the National Assembly Majority leader Aden Duale urged those who are planning to go for Hajj to cooperate with the Immigration officers to allow a smooth exercise of issuance of passport.

“This time around, there will be proper coordination from those charged with the responsibility of ensuring that things go on smoothly,” he said.

The Majority leader also requested those who are applying for passports to have all the required documents at hand when applying for the travel documents.

Hajj is the last of the five pillars of Islam and it is an obligation for those with the means to perform the pilgrimage at least once in a lifetime. The pilgrims are expected to start departing from the country early July to Makkah to perform this years’ pilgrimage.

Meanwhile, Muslim leaders in Nakuru have expressed their concerns on what they termed as discrimination in the issuance of passports by the immigration office.

Addressing the media outside Nakuru’s Jamia Mosque last week, the leaders who included the Nakuru County Muslim Association Chair Faeez Ahmed Nasher called on the government to ensure that the recently opened immigration office provides services to all citizens without discrimination on the basis of tribe or religious backgrounds.

“Registration of passports in Nakuru should not be discriminative. We want the vetting
committee to intervene in cases where Muslims are not being served like other Kenyans,” he said.

The spokesman for the Somali community Abdulaye Aden pointed out that most of the Muslim applicants were being denied services and told to instead travel to Nairobi to process their documents.

“We need the government to come to our aid because it is not fair to order us to travel to Nairobi to seek the services which others are easily obtaining here,” said Abdulaye.

Abdulaye said that the directive has inconvenienced those who were planning to travel to the sacred city of Makkah for Umrah, the lesser pilgrimage

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