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By Moutaz Ali.
Tripoli, 1 July 2014:
The Ministry of Tourism has announced that visas for travel to Saudi Arabia, . . .[restrict]particularly for the Umrah, will be distributed through the Saudi Embassy in Tunisia.
The difficulty of obtaining Saudi visas after the evacuation of Saudi diplomatic staff from Tripoli in May was discussed at an emergency meeting yesterday by 42 representatives of the tourism industry with ministers and their officials.
“We had to intervene because the problems touch thousands of Libyans who wish to go to the holy sites for Umrah,” an official from the Ministry of Tourism told the Libya Herald.
A special team drawn from the ministries of tourism, foreign affairs and immigration will oversee the procedure which will see four travel agents go to Tunisia, submit applications and collect the visas on behalf of their own clients and those of other travel agents.
“Because of the closing of the Saudi embassy in Tripoli, many travel agents have found themselves in a great deal trouble with their clients who had already paid for their trips,” one travel agent said.
The scheme, which is to begin shortly, has been agreed to by the Saudi Foreign Ministry and officials at the Saudi Embassy in Tunisia.
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