A senior Saudi official spoke out in defence of the Gulf kingdom’s leadership following the tragic deaths during the hajj, France 24 reported.
Saudi officials have previously informed that 1.8 million pilgrims attended this year’s event, the same number as last year, and that 1.6 million came from abroad, but many suffered by the extreme heat. On Friday it emerged the number of dead totalled 1,126, more than half of whom were from Egypt. Despite, an official to Agence France-Presse (AFP) said the following in the government’s first comments on the deaths:
The state did not fail, but there was a misjudgement on the part of people who did not appreciate the risks. (…) This happened amid difficult weather conditions and a very harsh temperature.
The Saudi official said officials confirmed 577 deaths on the two busiest days of the hajj: Saturday, when pilgrims gathered for hours of prayers under the scorching sun on Mount Arafat, and Sunday, when they participated in the “stoning of the devil” ritual in Mina.
Hajj, one of the five pillars of Islam, fell again this year in the sweltering Saudi summer. Temperatures reached 51.8 degrees Celsius (125 Fahrenheit) at the Grand Mosque in Mecca on Monday, according to the national meteorological centre.
Although, the number of people affected is due to the fact that high costs encourage many pilgrims to perform Hajj without permits, even though they risk arrest and deportation if they are caught by Saudi security forces. In addition, before the hajj, Saudi officials said they expelled more than 300,000 would-be pilgrims from Mecca who did not have hajj permits. But later allowed those who arrived to participate.
Egyptian pilgrims reported in some cases they had difficulty reaching hospitals or calling ambulances for their loved ones, some of whom eventually died. They also said they could not access official hajj buses – the only transport around holy sites – without paying exorbitant unofficial fees. Earlier this week, Arab diplomats told AFP 658 people had died in Egypt, 630 of whom were unregistered pilgrims.
