“More than two million people from more than 160 countries will attend… a dramatic increase on the 926,000 from last year, when numbers were capped at one million following the Covid-19 pandemic. About 1.5 million pilgrims from abroad had already arrived by Wednesday evening. In 2019, about 2.5 million people took part. Only 10,000 were allowed in 2020, at the height of the coronavirus pandemic, rising to nearly 59,000 a year later.”
