Saudi Arabia said on Sunday that more than 1,300 pilgrims died during the Hajj pilgrimage held in scorching heat and most of those who died did not have official permits.
“Unfortunately, the death toll reached 1,301, 83 percent of whom were unauthorized to perform Hajj and died after walking long distances in direct sunlight, without any shelter or facilities,” the official Saudi Press Agency reported.
The number was more than 1,100, according to figures released last week by AFP based on official statements and reports from diplomats involved in their countries’ responses.
The dead include more than 10 countries from the United States to Indonesia, and some governments are still updating their tolls.
Arab diplomats told AFP last week that 658 Egyptians were among those killed – 630 of them unregistered pilgrims.
Diplomats said the cause of death in most cases was heat.
According to Saudi Arabia’s National Meteorology Centre, temperatures in Mecca reached 51.8 degrees Celsius (125 degrees Fahrenheit) this year.
Riyadh had not publicly commented on the deaths or given its own numbers until Sunday.
However, on Friday a senior Saudi official gave AFP a partial count of 577 deaths on the two busiest days of the hajj: June 15, when pilgrims gathered for hours of prayer under the hot sun on Mount Arafat, and June 16, when they took part in the “stoning of the devil” ritual in Mina.
The official also defended Riyadh’s response, saying “the state did not fail, but there was bad judgment on the part of people who did not assess the risks.”
‘heat stress’
Saudi Health Minister Fahad al-Jalajel on Sunday described the management of this year’s Hajj as “successful”, SPA reports.
He said the health system “provided more than 465,000 specialized treatment services, including 141,000 services for those who did not receive official permission to perform Hajj,” according to SPA, which summarized an interview he gave to the state-affiliated Al-Akhbariya channel.
Jalajal did not say how many deaths Saudi authorities have attributed to heat.
“The health system has noticed several cases of heat stress this year, and some individuals are still under care,” SPA said.
“The dead also included many elderly and seriously ill persons.”
Hajj is one of the five pillars of Islam that all Muslims must complete at least once in their lives.
Saudi officials have said 1.8 million pilgrims attended this year, the same as last year, with 1.6 million coming from abroad.
For the past several years, the rituals have been performed primarily outdoors during Saudi Arabia’s brutal summer heat.
The date of the Hajj is advanced by about 11 days each year in the Gregorian calendar, meaning the following year the pilgrimage will take place in June, possibly in cooler conditions.
A 2019 study by the journal Geophysical Research Letters said that due to climate change, heat stress for Hajj pilgrims will exceed the “extreme hazard threshold” between 2047 and 2052 and 2079 and 2086, with “increasing frequency and intensity as the century progresses”.
Hajj without any fee
Hajj permits are allocated to countries based on a quota system and distributed to individuals through a lottery.
Even among those who can obtain permits, many are tempted to perform the Hajj without a permit because of the heavy costs, though they remain at risk of arrest and deportation if caught.
Saudi authorities said ahead of the Hajj that they had expelled hundreds of thousands of unregistered pilgrims from Mecca.
But speaking to AFP on Friday, a Saudi official said around 400,000 unregistered pilgrims had attended, and almost all of them were of the same nationality, an apparent reference to Egypt.
On Saturday, Egypt’s Prime Minister Mustafa Madbouly ordered the licences of 16 tourism companies to be revoked and their managers to be referred to the public prosecutor for organising illegal pilgrimages to Mecca, the Egyptian Cabinet said.
It said the rise in the number of deaths of unregistered Egyptian pilgrims was due to some companies “organising Hajj programmes using personal visit visas, which prevent its holders from entering Mecca through official channels.”
In many cases unregistered pilgrims did not have access to facilities needed to make the pilgrimage more comfortable, including air-conditioned tents.
Unregistered Egyptian pilgrims told AFP last week that in some cases they had difficulty reaching hospital or calling ambulances for their loved ones, some of whom died.
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