%1

As Mecca reopens, economic disparities are on display

Mariam is sipping on a juice box while sitting on the front steps outside a hotel not far from the Grand Mosque in Mecca, the holiest of cities for Muslims. She first says she is ten years old but then decides she is eight.

Her mother, in a black abaya and a face veil, is sitting a few steps away on the pavement, selling scarves to a group of pilgrims.

It is 6:30 a.m., and dozens of pilgrims stop as they walk back to their hotels after performing fajr, the morning prayer at the Grand Mosque.