Arab social networks have been flooded this week with shocking images from Saudi Arabia. There are photos and videos showing pilgrims slumped on the side of the road or in wheelchairs, apparently close to death or already dead.
On their way to Mecca, they wear the traditional white clothing of pilgrims and their faces are covered. In several images, there appear to be corpses abandoned, presumably in the place where they collapsed.
What began as a rumor on social media was confirmed at the end of the week: hundreds of pilgrims have died in Saudi Arabia, evidently due to the very high temperatures or the lack of shelter and water.
Extreme temperatures
Temperatures rose to 51.8 degrees in Mecca, the holiest city in Islam. Some 1.8 million Muslims were expected to arrive at one of the largest religious gatherings in the world. The pilgrimage to Mecca is one of the five pillars of Islam, every Muslim who can carry it out is supposed to do so at least once in his life.
According to the AFP news agency, which has been counting the fatalities through different sources and countries in recent days, the death toll has exceeded a thousand.
The governments of Egypt, Indonesia, Senegal, Jordan, Iran, Iraq, India and Tunisia have confirmed the deaths of pilgrims from those countries. Probably more than 300 came from Egypt. For its part, the Indonesian Ministry of Health also reported the death of more than 140 nationals.
In recent years, Saudi authorities have attempted to take measures to mitigate the impact of high summer temperatures on visitors by making misting stations and water dispensers available. Despite this, it is believed that the vast majority of deaths are probably heat-related. Many of the pilgrims who set out on the road to Mecca are elderly, as it is something they want to do before they die.
Desperate search for missing people
The death toll may continue to rise. Friends and family continue the search in Saudi hospitals or launching calls for help on social networks to try to find loved ones who arrived in Mecca but are now missing.
“Honestly, this year’s pilgrimage has been a shame,” Ihlsa, a pilgrim from Aswan, in southern Egypt, who prefers to hide her full name, told DW via WhatsApp message. “It was very difficult, especially during the stoning. People were collapsing on the ground.”
And part of the ritual consists of pilgrims throwing stones against three walls, a symbolic way of “stoning the devil.” “The distance to throw the stones was really excessive, the sun was high and it was very hot,” says Ihlsa.
Whose fault is it?
In the pilgrims’ countries of origin, there is a hot debate about who is to blame for what happened. In order to go to Mecca, pilgrims need an official permit from Saudi Arabia to enter the country. Because there are more Muslims than they can fit, Saudi Arabia applies a quota system every year. In the past there were problems of overcrowding and excessive heat.
The trip to Saudi Arabia is usually organized through travel agencies, often linked to Muslim communities or mosques in the pilgrims’ country of origin. Agencies organize accommodation, food and transportation in Mecca. Some families of victims blame Saudi authorities or those in their own countries for not being organized enough or for not providing enough shelter from the extreme heat.
Other voices blame those who made the pilgrimage to Mecca without registering. More than 171,000 unregistered pilgrims were identified in the country, the Saudi director of Public Security, Mohammed bin Abdullah al-Bassami, stated earlier this week.
Saudi security services previously launched a campaign to detain anyone making an illicit pilgrimage. Unregistered pilgrims cannot access the same type of facilities – air conditioning, water, shade and misting or cooling centers – as registered pilgrims, which may also have caused casualties.
“There were no stores for everyone”
DW was able to speak with an official from a private Egyptian tourism company that has been taking Egyptian pilgrims to Mecca for several years and who was in Saudi Arabia this week. The manager did not want to give his name because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
“Everyone did what they wanted and everything was poorly organized. Furthermore, there were not enough stores for everyone,” he told DW by phone, and assured that there was no stampede. “People were happy to be on Mount Arafat,” he says.
“My opinion is that when people realized how hot it was and the intensity of the sun, they should have avoided going to the top,” explains the person in charge of the pilgrimage, adding that many pilgrims do not know that the ritual also It can be done on a lower slope.
“Pilgrims have to be better educated and more aware,” he continues. “The State has obligations and responsibilities. But the behavior of some [de los peregrinos] indicates lack of awareness. And, by that, I mean the lack of knowledge about how to perform the rituals. For example, the State [saudí] “You cannot put umbrellas on the top of Mount Arafat.”
(ms/rml)
