More than one million Indonesian pilgrims travel to Saudi Arabia annually for umrah, and more than 200,000 are granted permission each year for the haj, which has a quota system imposed by Riyadh.

In Indonesia, waiting lists for the haj can stretch up to five years due to quotas, which is why many Indonesian Muslims do the umrah pilgrimage.

To go on the journey, many Indonesians spend years saving up or put down deposits with banks and travel agencies to finance either pilgrimage.

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Scenes of tears, confusion and anxiousness played out on Thursday at Soekarno-Hatta International Airport, just outside the capital Jakarta and the main air route to Mecca, as pilgrims learned they would not be able to travel. Thousands were still stranded there and at other airports across the country on Friday.

“We should have flown at 1.30pm today, but I don’t know whether we could go or not. Right now, I can only accept it,” said Ade, one of the pilgrims.

The travel ban has also caused chaos for airlines as well as travel agents and tour operators that specialise in umrah and haj tours, which are all scrambling to make adjustments. The Indonesian government has estimated that its travel industry could lose up to US$71 million if Saudi Arabia’s travel ban lasts two weeks.

The Indonesian embassy in Riyadh announced it would appeal to the Saudi government to exempt Indonesian pilgrims, given that the country does not have a confirmed case of the coronavirus.

“This is quite confusing. The announcement was delivered in the morning but to immediate effect,” Irfan Setiaputra, president director of flagship carrier Garuda Indonesia, said.

About 4,000 other pilgrims were scheduled to leave for Saudi Arabia from other Indonesian cities such as Surabaya, Bandung and Makassar on Thursday and were stranded, said Ali Machzumi, chief of umrah affairs at Indonesia’s Ministry of Religious Affairs. He added that charter planes carrying nearly 1,200 people had already departed.

“It’s not clear because they are likely to be returned, as they are now in transit in Dubai and Malaysia,” he told BenarNews.

Pramudya Panji, the head of Tauhid Tour & Travel, a company based in the city of Depok, just outside Jakarta, said all of their trips had been frozen, but added the Saudi government said they could resume trips by March 14.

There was a notice issued via social media, but the Saudi Embassy in Jakarta did not respond to calls to confirm it.

“We believe the Saudi government just wants to improve their systems of detection during the period of suspension to guard against the spread of the coronavirus,” Panji said.

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He said some Indonesian pilgrims who had already flown to Saudi were now facing a hassle to secure flights back home.

“They need to wait for new planes to go back to Indonesia. That takes time and is tiring,” Panji said. “Fortunately, our pilgrims have not flown out yet. So, we have just informed them of the situation, and they understand the problem.”

Visitors to the Al-Munawwarah mosque in south Jakarta for Friday prayers said they were sympathetic toward the stranded pilgrims, and added that Indonesians should not have been banned from attending umrah because no cases had been reported in the country.

“I pray for us to avoid all diseases, including all the viruses in the world,” said Yunand R. Ridwan, a 40-year-old logistics professional. “We should be scared, certainly, but not paranoid.”

Additional reporting by Muhammad Rusmadi in Jakarta, AFP