The Ministry of Islamic Affairs has revealed that a total of 8,764 have been registered as poor in the Maldives.

An official at the ministry told RaajjeMV that the total number of individuals registered as poor crossed 8,000 this year and that this includes 1,717 individuals from capital Malé City alone.

This comes at a time the ministry has also begun accepting Zakat payments for this year.

The ministry's statistics reveal that 16،294 individuals registered as poor during 2018 which is an increase in comparison to the year before that, 16،205 had registered during 2017.

An increase in the number of individuals registering as the poor is observed every year.