{"id":56954,"date":"2026-06-07T11:04:12","date_gmt":"2026-06-07T11:04:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/sierra-leone\/all-news\/sierra-leonean-home-based-hajj-pilgrims-return-to-freetown"},"modified":"2026-06-07T11:09:55","modified_gmt":"2026-06-07T11:09:55","slug":"sierra-leonean-home-based-hajj-pilgrims-return-to-freetown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/sierra-leone\/all-news\/sierra-leonean-home-based-hajj-pilgrims-return-to-freetown","title":{"rendered":"Sierra Leonean Home-Based Hajj Pilgrims Return to Freetown"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #ff6600\"><strong>Africa-Press &#8211; Sierra-Leone. <\/strong><\/span><b>The first batch of 267 Sierra Leonean home-based Hajj pilgrims has just departed from King Abdulaziz International Airport, bound for Freetown.<\/b><\/p>\n<p>The flight is expected to arrive at Freetown International Airport, Lungi, at 2:40am Sierra Leone time, 7 June 2026.<\/p>\n<p>Of the 2,626 pilgrims, 826 are home-based and registered from Sierra Leone, while 1,800 are Sierra Leoneans based abroad.<\/p>\n<p>According to the General Authority for Statistics (GASTAT), exactly 1,707,301 pilgrims performed the 1447H\/2026 Hajj in Makkah. Of that number, 1,546,655 were international pilgrims from 165 nationalities, and 160,646 were citizens and residents of Saudi Arabia. Male pilgrims numbered 893,396, and female pilgrims 823,905.<\/p>\n<p>Hajj, one of the Five Pillars of Islam, is obligatory for Muslims who are physically and financially able. This year\u2019s pilgrimage ran from 25 to 30 May 2026, corresponding to 8\u201312 Dhul-Hijjah 1447H.<\/p>\n<p><strong>For More News And Analysis About <span style=\"color: #ff6600\">Sierra-Leone<\/span> Follow <span style=\"color: #ff6600\">Africa-Press<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Africa-Press &#8211; Sierra-Leone. The first batch of 267 Sierra Leonean home-based Hajj pilgrims has just departed from King Abdulaziz International Airport, bound for Freetown. The flight is expected to arrive at Freetown International Airport, Lungi, at 2:40am Sierra Leone time, 7 June 2026. Of the 2,626 pilgrims, 826 are home-based and registered from Sierra Leone, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":56953,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,3],"tags":[292],"class_list":["post-56954","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-community","tag-sierra-leone"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.1 (Yoast SEO v27.0) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Sierra Leonean Home-Based Hajj Pilgrims Return to Freetown - Sierra Leone<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The first batch of 267 Sierra Leonean home-based Hajj pilgrims has just departed from King Abdulaziz International Ai ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/sierra-leone\/all-news\/sierra-leonean-home-based-hajj-pilgrims-return-to-freetown\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Sierra Leonean Home-Based Hajj Pilgrims Return to Freetown\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The first batch of 267 Sierra Leonean home-based Hajj pilgrims has just departed from King Abdulaziz International Ai ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/sierra-leone\/all-news\/sierra-leonean-home-based-hajj-pilgrims-return-to-freetown\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Sierra Leone\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AfricaPressTunisiaa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-06-07T11:04:12+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-06-07T11:09:55+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/sierra-leone\/sites\/16\/2026\/06\/sm_1780817878.476001.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"630\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/sierra-leone\/all-news\/sierra-leonean-home-based-hajj-pilgrims-return-to-freetown#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/sierra-leone\/all-news\/sierra-leonean-home-based-hajj-pilgrims-return-to-freetown\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/sierra-leone\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"Sierra Leonean Home-Based Hajj Pilgrims Return to Freetown\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-06-07T11:04:12+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2026-06-07T11:09:55+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/sierra-leone\/all-news\/sierra-leonean-home-based-hajj-pilgrims-return-to-freetown\"},\"wordCount\":141,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/sierra-leone\/all-news\/sierra-leonean-home-based-hajj-pilgrims-return-to-freetown#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/sierra-leone\/sites\/16\/2026\/06\/sm_1780817878.476001.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Sierra-Leone\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"community\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/sierra-leone\/all-news\/sierra-leonean-home-based-hajj-pilgrims-return-to-freetown#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/sierra-leone\/all-news\/sierra-leonean-home-based-hajj-pilgrims-return-to-freetown\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/sierra-leone\/all-news\/sierra-leonean-home-based-hajj-pilgrims-return-to-freetown\",\"name\":\"Sierra Leonean Home-Based Hajj Pilgrims Return to Freetown - 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