Two Arab diplomats Said At least 550 Muslims were killed during the 2024 Islamic Easter holiday, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported on Tuesday. Hajj Many pilgrims to Mecca in Saudi Arabia have died from heat stroke.
Temperatures in Mecca soared to 125 degrees Fahrenheit in June. Saudi Arabian authorities said Sunday that more than 2,000 pilgrims were treated for heatstroke, but did not mention any deaths and have not provided an update since Sunday.
AFP’s death toll, based on local media sources, put the figure at 645 as of Wednesday. Arab diplomats who spoke to AFP Said Mecca’s largest morgue contained 550 bodies.
Of the deaths recorded so far, 323 are Egyptians and 60 are Jordanians, according to Jordanian government figures. Diplomats said one Egyptian “suffered fatal injuries in minor clashes with the crowd,” but all the others died from heat-related complications.
Egypt’s foreign ministry said on Tuesday it was working with Saudi Arabia to rescue the missing Egyptians. Hajj. Egyptian authorities said there had been a “number of deaths” but did not give a specific figure.
“Some pilgrims said they saw motionless bodies on the roadside and ambulances appearing to be overwhelmed at times,” AFP reported.
Locating the missing and verifying the death toll has been extremely difficult as many pilgrims enter Mecca illegally, either because they cannot afford the Saudi Arabian visa fees or because various political issues make it difficult for them to enter the country.
A police officer sprays a woman with water on a hot day as Muslim pilgrims continue to pray to fulfill their hajj obligation in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, on June 17, 2024. (Isam Rimawi/Anadolu via Getty Images)
A diplomatic source told AFP that many of the Egyptians who died were “irregular pilgrims” who had “spent a long period without food, water or air conditioning.”
“Other countries, Hajj This year they include Indonesia, Iran and Senegal,” AFP added.
England Guardian on wednesday Said Friends and family of missing persons Hajj Pilgrims have frantically searched for them in hospitals and made online pleas for their whereabouts. The husband of a missing 70-year-old Tunisian woman feared the worst as her wife was an “unregistered” pilgrim with no access to air-conditioned facilities after spending hours praying in the sun.
“She was an old woman and she was tired. She was feeling very hot and had nowhere to sleep. I have looked for her in all the hospitals but so far I have no idea,” he said.
of Hajj The heat, the advanced age of many pilgrims and occasional stampedes make the pilgrimage, which is obligatory for all Muslims at least once in their lifetime, always a dangerous affair.
Millions of people flock to Mecca every year, a city that was not built with such huge numbers in mind, and Saudi Arabia is often criticized by other governments for not doing enough to protect the pilgrims.
of Hajj Some years have been exceptionally deadly, with at least 2,400 people killed in 2015. It was crushed Some deaths were caused by stampedes. According to AFP, the death toll in 2023 was relatively low, at around 240 people, most of them Indonesians.
