At least 1,301 folks died throughout this yr’s annual Hajj pilgrimage that happened amid excessive warmth, a Saudi official mentioned late Sunday.
Some 83% of the fatalities have been unregistered pilgrims, Saudi Health Minister Fahd al-Jalajel mentioned with out offering a breakdown of their nationalities.
The temperature within the Saudi metropolis of Mecca and different close by holy websites hovered round 50 levels Celsius (122 levels Fahrenheit) by way of Tuesday’s last pilgrimage day.
“The unregistered pilgrims walked for long distances under the sun without shelter and rest. A number of them were elderly and some others had chronic diseases,” al-Jalajel advised the Saudi state tv al-Ekhbariya.
The official mentioned the lifeless had no identification playing cards, a matter that required time to determine them and get in touch with their households.
Several Arab governments mentioned a lot of the pilgrims who died in Saudi Arabia, Islam’s birthplace, weren’t registered and had traveled on vacationer visas, not the required Hajj visas, which made it more durable to seek out them or decide their precise numbers.
Unregistered pilgrims normally haven’t any entry to lodging and transportation providers.
Some 1.8 million pilgrims took half on this yr’s Hajj. One of the 5 pillars of Islam, the Hajj is a compulsory responsibility for all Muslims to finish as soon as in a lifetime if they’ve the monetary and bodily means to take action.
Source: www.dailysabah.com