Tragedy: Saudi Arabia orders hajj
safety reviewY
Aftermath of the stampede that claimed
hundreds of lives, Saudi Arabia’s King Salman
has ordered a safety review for the Hajj
pilgrimage.
At least 717 people died in a stampede near the
holy city of Mecca on Thursday.
Another 863 people were injured in the incident
at Mina, which occurred as two million pilgrims
were taking part in the Hajj’s last major rite.
It is the deadliest incident to occur during the
pilgrimage in 25 years.
The king said there was a need “to improve the
level of organisation and management of
movement” of pilgrims.
The Saudi health minister, Khaled al-Falih, said
the crush occurred because many pilgrims
moved “without respecting the timetables”
established by authorities
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Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader of
Iran, which lost at least 95 of its citizens in the
crush, said the Saudi government “must accept
the huge responsibility”, adding that
“mismanagement and improper actions” were
to blame
Pope Francis, who is visiting the US, expressed
his “sentiments of closeness” with Muslims,
during a prayer service at St Patrick’s Cathedral
in New York.
It is the second disaster to strike Mecca in two
weeks, after a crane collapsed at the Grand
Mosque, killing 109 people.
As part of the Hajj, pilgrims travel to Mina, a
large valley about 5km (3 miles) from Mecca, to
throw seven stones at pillars called Jamarat,
which represent the devil.
The pillars stand where Satan is believed to
have tempted the Prophet Abraham.
Why do millions gather in Mecca every year?
The accident occurred at 09:00 local time (06:00
GMT) as pilgrims were walking towards the five-
storey structure which surrounds the pillars,
known as the Jamarat Bridge.
Maj Gen Mansour al-Turki, a spokesman for the
Saudi interior ministry, said the crush occurred
when two large groups of pilgrims converged
from different directions on to one street.
Hundreds of thousands of people continued to
the Jamarat pillars despite the tragedy earlier
The civil defence directorate said the victims
were of “different nationalities”, without
providing details.
The BBC understands at least three
Indonesians, and some pilgrims from Niger, are
among the dead.
The UK Foreign Office said it was urgently
seeking more information about whether
British nationals were involved.
The Saudi authorities have spent billions of
dollars on improving transport and other
infrastructure to try to prevent such incidents.
The Hajj is the fifth and final pillar of Islam. It is
the journey that every able-bodied adult Muslim
must undertake at least once in their lives if
they can afford it.
The number of people attending Hajj rose from
57,000 in 1921 to a high of 3.2m three years
ago, according to the Saudi Central Department
of Statistics and Information.
That figure dropped to just over two million last
year.
Tragedies timeline
2006: 364 pilgrims die in a crush at foot of
Jamarat Bridge in Mina
1997: 340 pilgrims are killed when fire fuelled
by high winds sweeps through Mina’s tent city
1994: 270 pilgrims die in a stampede during the
stoning ritual
1990: 1,426 pilgrims, mainly Asian, die in a
stampede in an overcrowded tunnel leading to
holy sites
1987: 402 people die when security forces break
up an anti-US demonstration by Iranian
pilgrims
Credit: BBC
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