Makkah: A 47-year-old Bosnian Muslim man reached Saudi Arabia this week to perform the annual pilgrimage after travelling nearly 3,600 miles (5,900 km) on foot from his Bosnian village, Saudi newspapers said on Monday.

“I wanted to perform Hajj but I had no money,” Emirates 24/7 quoted Senad Hadzic as saying.

“I decided to walk to Saudi Arabia, having only 200 euros.”

Aspiring to perform hajj, Hadzic first hit the road for his lengthy trip from Banovici, his hometown in northern Bosnia, on December 2011.

During the journey, he walked for nearly 3,600 miles (5,900 km) on foot from his Bosnian village to the Muslims’ holy city of Makkah.

Covering between 12 to 20 miles a day, Hadzic managed to cross six countries, including Turkey, Jordan and Syria before entering Saudi Arabia this week.

In his back bag, he carried his copy of the holy Qur’an wrapped in plastic to protect it from weather elements.

Newspapers quoted him as saying in a You-Tube film that he walked all that distance because he had no money.

“I slept at mosques, schools and other places, including houses offered to me by good people,” Hadzic was quoted as saying in a You-Tube video.

“Some people asked me whether I was scared when passing through wild places and I told them ‘why should I…God is with me.”

Muslims from around the world pour into Makkah every year to perform hajj, one of the five pillars of Islam, that start on the eighth day of the lunar month of Dhul Hijjah, which falls this year on October 24.