Panitia Penyelenggara Ibadah Haji (PPIH) Debarkasi Banda Aceh menyatakan seluruh jamaah haji asal provinsi itu telah menuntaskan tawaf ifadah.
“Alhamdulillah seluruh jamaah haji asal Aceh telah menuntaskan seluruh rangkaian ibadah haji pada musim haji 2013,” kata Ketua PPIH Debarkasi Banda Aceh Ibnu Sa’dan, Selasa.
Dijelaskannya, saat ini para jamaah haji masih berada di Mekkah dan melaksanakan ziarah dan umroh sunnah sebelum bertolak ke Madinah. “Mereka melakukan sejumlah ibadah lainnya sebelum meninggalkan Mekkah dan menuju Madinah dan selanjutnya bertolak ke Tanah Air,”k katanya didampingi Kasubag Humas Kanwil Kemenag Aceh Akhyar.
Dijelaskannya, jamaah haji Aceh akan bergerak dari Mekkah menuju Madinah pada 29 Oktober 2013. Rombongan jamaah haji kelompok terbang pertama akan tiba kembali di provinsi ujung paling barat Indonesia itu sekitar pukul 10.55 WIB pada 9 November 2013 dengan menggunakan maskapai milik Garuda.
“Kami akan terus berupaya memberikan pelayanan prima dalam proses pemulangan hingga pelepasan jamaah ke masing-masing kabupaten/kota,” katanya.
Pada musim haji 2013, Embarkasi Banda Aceh memberangkatkan sebanyak 3.157 calon jamaah haji yang tergabung dalam delapan Kloter. Seluruh calon jamaah haji tersebut diberangkatkan melalui Bandara Internasional Sultan Iskandar Muda Blang Bintang Aceh Besar.
Nepal’s Young Men, Lost to Migration, Then a Quake
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Many bodies prepared for cremation last week in Kathmandu were of young men from Gongabu, a common stopover for Nepali migrant workers headed overseas.Credit Daniel Berehulak for The New York Times
KATHMANDU, Nepal — When the dense pillar of smoke from cremations by the Bagmati River was thinning late last week, the bodies were all coming from Gongabu, a common stopover for Nepali migrant workers headed overseas, and they were all of young men.
Hindu custom dictates that funeral pyres should be lighted by the oldest son of the deceased, but these men were too young to have sons, so they were burned by their brothers or fathers. Sukla Lal, a maize farmer, made a 14-hour journey by bus to retrieve the body of his 19-year-old son, who had been on his way to the Persian Gulf to work as a laborer.
“He wanted to live in the countryside, but he was compelled to leave by poverty,” Mr. Lal said, gazing ahead steadily as his son’s remains smoldered. “He told me, ‘You can live on your land, and I will come up with money, and we will have a happy family.’ ”
Weeks will pass before the authorities can give a complete accounting of who died in the April 25 earthquake, but it is already clear that Nepal cannot afford the losses. The countryside was largely stripped of its healthy young men even before the quake, as they migrated in great waves — 1,500 a day by some estimates — to work as laborers in India, Malaysia or one of the gulf nations, leaving many small communities populated only by elderly parents, women and children. Economists say that at some times of the year, one-quarter of Nepal’s population is working outside the country.