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COVID-19 shatters Haj dreams of older pilgrims
Egyptian Mohammed Alatar tries on the simple garment worn by pilgrims performing the hajj at a store in Saudi Arabia AFP/FAYEZ NURELDINE
16 Jul 2021 11:56AM (Updated:
16 Jul 2021 11:58AM) Share this content
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CAIRO: Samia Ahmed saved up for 16 years, but like many older Muslims she fears that renewed COVID-19 curbs will prevent her from ever making the Haj pilgrimage.
Saudi Arabia has for a second consecutive year confined the annual Haj to a limited number of residents, excluding the millions of foreigners who usually flock to Mecca for the rite that every able-bodied Muslim is obliged to perform at least once.
shape. we are about to give the all clear. not quite. let me show you what it looked like earlier. it rained. in fact, it was flooding in parts of our building. rain fall with this particular line of storms, very common. 1 to 2 inches for the whole event. that s enough to cause some flash flooding. there s still some river flood warnings in effect for some of our counties out to the west. we ll get to that in a minute. now we ll show you the tornado watch. it is still in effect until 7:00. calvert county, st. mary s county, and the northern neck. quite frankly, the danger of tornadoes is over here. you may have big storms and flooding, but the danger of tornadoes is pretty much over. live doppler 9,000. you can see the heavy activity extending back to leanardtown. all the reds, that s the severe line. that produced a 61-mile per hour wind gusts south of the airport. pretty impressive stuff. reports of trees down across the entire metro area. now this line is moving across int