Saudi king hosts 200 from Christchurch shootings for Hajj
Wellington, Jul 26: Aya Al-Umari said she feels like her brother will be accompanying her and will constantly be in her prayers when she travels to Mecca next month to take part in the annual Hajj pilgrimage.
Al-Umari is one of 200 relatives and survivors from the Christchurch mosque shootings who are traveling to Saudi Arabia as guests of King Salman. The king is paying for all travel and accommodation costs, a bill likely to run to over USD 1 million.
The Saudi ambassador to New Zealand, Abdulrahman Al Suhaibani, on Friday said farewell to the pilgrims at the Al Noor mosque, one of two mosques where a gunman killed 51 people in March.
Al-Umari said the ambassador handed out special clothes for the men to wear during the pilgrimage and told the women they would be given kits when they arrived in Saudi Arabia.
Al-Umari's 35-year-old brother Hussein was among those killed.
She said it's an honour that King Salman is sponsoring the trips, a fact reinforced in her visa documents stating that she's travelling as a guest of the custodian of the two holy mosques.
"It came at such a perfect time and it helps with the grief as well," Al-Umari said.
"It's such a humbling thing to be given. I always had, personally, as a goal before I get married, to Hajj. Now it's been given to us on a plate. I feel it's a blessing from Hussein that is looking after me and my family."
She said she was initially nervous about the trip, and won't know many of the others going because so many of her friends were killed during the March massacre.
"It's a tough journey to do, Hajj," she said. "There are quite a number of factors. There's lots of walking, and the weather it's quite hot. But these are all surface things, and the holiness of the whole pilgrimage will overtake the toughness of the journey."
The Hajj is one of the five pillars of Islam, and all able-bodied Muslims are required to perform it once in their lifetime.
During the five-day pilgrimage, millions of Muslims circle Islam's most sacred site, the cube-shaped Kaaba, and take part in rituals intended to bring about greater humility and unity.
Al-Umari said she travelled with her brother and parents to Mecca as a child for the umrah, or what she describes as the mini-Hajj.
Lateef Alabi, the imam of the Linwood mosque where worshippers were also killed during the March attacks, said it would be his third trip to Mecca but his first time for the Hajj.
He said he was delighted with how first the New Zealand government and now the Saudi king were doing what they could to help the Muslim community of Christchurch heal.
"It's putting good in the place of bad," he said. "Over time, people will get over the pain. But it will take years, and they will never see their family members again."
Brenton Tarrant, a 28-year-old Australian white supremacist, has pleaded not guilty to terrorism, murder and attempted murder charges following the March attacks. He remains in jail ahead of his trial, which has been scheduled for next May.
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Salah-less Liverpool plays Inter in Champions League. Barcelona, Bayern, Chelsea all in action
London (AP): After leaving Mohamed Salah at home, Liverpool needs to show it can win without the Egyptian forward as Arne Slot's team takes on Inter Milan in the Champions League on Tuesday.
On a night when Barcelona, Bayern Munich, Chelsea and Tottenham are all in action, the focus is on Liverpool after Salah said Saturday it “seems like the club has thrown me under the bus.” Liverpool's response was to leave him out of the squad for its trip to Italy.
Liverpool's poor recent form boosts Inter's chances of picking up a fifth win in six games. A win for 13th-place Liverpool would put Slot's team back into the hunt for the top eight seedings for the knockout stages.
After losing its last Champions League game 3-0 to Chelsea, Barcelona aims to recover at home to struggling Eintracht Frankfurt. It will have to do without defender Ronald Araujo, who is suspended after his red card against Chelsea and has also been unavailable for personal reasons.
Seventh-place Chelsea is unbeaten in four Champions League games and visits Atalanta aiming to strengthen its hold on a top-eight spot offering direct entry to the round of 16. Bayern can earn its fifth win of the league stage by beating Sporting Lisbon in an early kickoff.
Tottenham, which lost 5-3 to Paris Saint-Germain last time out, has an easier task against Czech team Slavia Prague. Atletico Madrid visits PSV Eindhoven, Monaco hosts Galatasaray and Union Saint-Gilloise plays Marseille.
One game starts in an unusually early window at 1530 GMT (10:30 a.m. ET) as Kazakhstan's Kairat Almaty hosts Greece's Olympiacos.
