Riyadh:

After years of failing to secure a hajj visa, Yasser finally concluded he had no choice but to perform the holy pilgrimage illegally, a move he has now come to regret.

While he survived the gruelling annual rites that unfolded in extreme heat again this year, he has not seen his wife since Sunday and fears she is among the more than 1,000 reported fatalities — the majority unregistered Egyptians like himself.

“I have searched every single hospital in Mecca. She’s not there,” the 60-year-old retired engineer told AFP on Friday by phone from his hotel room, where he is reluctant to pack his wife’s suitcase in hopes she’ll be back to do it herself.

“I don’t want to believe in this possibility that she’s dead. Because if she’s dead, it’s the end of her life and also the end of my life.”

Egypt accounts for more than half of this year’s hajj fatalities — 658 out of more than 1,000 reported as of Friday by around 10 countries stretching from Senegal to Indonesia, according to an AFP tally.

An Arab diplomat told AFP that 630 of those 658 dead Egyptians were unregistered, meaning they could not rely on access to amenities meant to make the pilgrimage more bearable.

That included air-conditioned tents meant to offer some relief as temperatures soared to as high as 51.8 degrees Celsius (125 Fahrenheit) at the Grand Mosque in Mecca, the holiest site in Islam.

Saudi authorities have not responded to requests for comment about fatalities.

The health ministry reported more than 2,700 cases of “heat exhaustion” on Sunday alone, but has not updated the figure since then.

Off-the-books fees

The hajj, one of the five pillars of Islam, must be completed by all Muslims with the means at least once.

Yet official permits are allocated to countries through a quota system and distributed to individuals via a lottery.

Even for those who can obtain them, the steep costs make the irregular route — which costs thousands of dollars less — more attractive.

That is especially true since 2019 when Saudi Arabia began issuing general tourist visas, making it easier to travel to the Gulf kingdom.

But for Yasser, who declined to be identified by his full name because he is still in Saudi Arabia, the complications from being unregistered became clear as soon as he reached the country in May.

Well before the formal hajj rites began a week ago, some shops and restaurants refused service to visitors who could not show permits on the official hajj app, known as Nusuk.

Once the long days of walking and praying beneath the blazing sun got underway, he could not access official hajj buses — the only transportation around the holy sites — without paying exorbitant, off-the-books fees.

When heat drove him to exhaustion, he sought urgent care at a hospital in Mina but was turned away, he said, again for lack of a permit.

As their conditions worsened, Yasser and his wife Safaa lost each other in the crowds during the “stoning the devil” ritual in Mina.

Since then Yasser has repeatedly postponed their return flight home, hoping she will turn up.

“I will keep postponing it until I find her,” he said.

‘All of Egypt is sad’

Other unregistered Egyptian pilgrims interviewed by AFP this week described similar hardships — and similarly alarming sights along the hajj route as the heat’s toll mounted.

“There were dead bodies on the ground” in Arafat, Mina and on the way to Mecca, said Mohammed, 31, an Egyptian who lives in Saudi Arabia and who performed the hajj this year with his 56-year-old mother.

“I saw people suddenly collapse and die from exhaustion.”

Another Egyptian whose mother died on the pilgrimage route, and who declined to be identified by even a first name because she lives in Riyadh, said it was impossible to get her mother an ambulance.

An emergency vehicle only materialised after her mother was dead, taking the body to an unknown location.

“Until now my cousins in Mecca are still searching for the body of my mom,” she said.

“Don’t we have the right to get at last look at her before she is buried?”

Even some registered pilgrims struggled to access emergency services, pointing to a system that was overwhelmed, said Mustafa, whose elderly parents — who had their hajj permits — both died after becoming separated from younger relatives.

“We knew they were tired,” Mustafa told AFP by phone from Egypt. “They were walking very long distances and they couldn’t find water, and it was so hot.”

He had been looking forward to welcoming them home once they returned, but now his only solace comes from the fact they have been buried in the holy city of Mecca.

“Of course, we believe in what God has written for them…. but all of Egypt is sad,” he said.

“We’re never going to see them again.”
 

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Riyadh, Saudi Arabia:

A diplomat in Saudi Arabia said on Wednesday that 68 Indian nationals died during the hajj pilgrimage this year marked by searing heath, bringing the overall tally to more than 600.

“We have confirmed around 68 dead… Some are because of natural causes and we had many old-age pilgrims. And some are due to the weather conditions, that’s what we assume,” the diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told AFP.

The new toll comes after two Arab diplomats told AFP on Tuesday that 550 deaths had been recorded during the hajj, one of the five pillars of Islam that all Muslims with the means must perform at least once.

That figure included 323 Egyptians and 60 Jordanians, the Arab diplomats said, and one specified that nearly all the Egyptians died “because of heat”.

Fatalities have also been confirmed by Indonesia, Iran, Senegal, Tunisia and Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan region, though in many cases authorities have not specified the cause.

The total reported dead so far is 645, according to an AFP tally.

Last year more than 200 pilgrims were reported dead, most of them from Indonesia.

Saudi Arabia has not provided information on fatalities, though it reported more than 2,700 cases of “heat exhaustion” on Sunday alone.

The diplomat who confirmed the Indian fatalities said there were also some Indian pilgrims missing, but he declined to provide an exact number.

“This happens every year… We can’t say that it is abnormally high this year,” he said.

“It’s somewhat similar to last year but we will know more in the coming days.”

For the past several years the hajj has fallen during the sweltering Saudi summer.

According to a Saudi study published last month, temperatures in the area where rituals are performed are rising 0.4 degrees Celsius (0.72 degrees Fahrenheit) each decade.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Muslim pilgrims use umbrellas to shield themselves from the sun during the annual haj, in Mina, near the holy city of Mecca, Saudi Arabia, on June 18, 2024. Muslim pilgrims were wrapping up the Haj pilgrimage in the deadly summer heat on Tuesday
| Photo Credit: AP

Diplomats on Tuesday said at least 550 pilgrims died during the haj, underscoring the gruelling nature of the pilgrimage which again unfolded in scorching temperatures this year.

At least 323 of those who died were Egyptians, most of them succumbing to heat-related illnesses, two Arab diplomats coordinating their countries’ responses told AFP.

“All of them (the Egyptians) died because of heat” except for one who sustained fatal injuries during a minor crowd crush, one of the diplomats said, adding the total figure came from the hospital morgue in the Al-Muaisem neighbourhood of Mecca.

At least 60 Jordanians also died, the diplomats said, up from an official tally of 41 given earlier on Tuesday by Amman. The new deaths bring the total reported so far by multiple countries to 577, according to an AFP tally. The diplomats said the total at the morgue in Al-Muaisem, one of the biggest in Mecca, was 550.

The haj is one of the five pillars of Islam and all Muslims with the means must complete it at least once.

The pilgrimage is increasingly affected by climate change, according to a Saudi study published last month that said temperatures in the area where rituals are performed were rising 0.4 degrees Celsius (0.72 degrees Fahrenheit) each decade.

Temperatures hit 51.8 degrees Celsius (125 Fahrenheit) at the Grand Mosque in Mecca on Monday, the Saudi national meteorology centre said.

Heat stress

Earlier on Tuesday, Egypt’s foreign ministry said Cairo was collaborating with Saudi authorities on search operations for Egyptians who had gone missing during the haj.

While a ministry statement said “a certain number of deaths” had occurred, it did not specify whether Egyptians were among them.

Saudi authorities have reported treating more than 2,000 pilgrims suffering from heat stress but have not updated that figure since Sunday and have not provided information on fatalities.

At least 240 pilgrims were reported dead by various countries last year, most of them Indonesians.

AFP journalists in Mina, outside Mecca, on Monday saw pilgrims pouring bottles of water over their heads as volunteers handed out cold drinks and fast-melting chocolate ice cream to help them keep cool.

Saudi officials had advised pilgrims to use umbrellas, drink plenty of water and avoid exposure to the sun during the hottest hours of the day.

But many of the haj rituals, including the prayers on Mount Arafat which took place on Saturday, involve being outdoors for hours in the daytime.

Some pilgrims described seeing motionless bodies on the roadside and ambulance services that appeared overwhelmed at times.

Around 1.8 million pilgrims took part in the haj this year, 1.6 million of them from abroad, according to Saudi authorities.

Unregistered pilgrims

Each year tens of thousands of pilgrims attempt to perform the haj through irregular channels as they cannot afford the often costly procedures for official haj visas.

This places these off-the-books pilgrims at risk as they cannot access air-conditioned facilities provided by Saudi authorities along the haj route.

One of the diplomats who spoke to AFP on Tuesday said that the Egyptian death toll was “absolutely” boosted by a large number of unregistered Egyptian pilgrims.

“Irregular pilgrims caused great chaos in the Egyptian pilgrims’ camps, causing the collapse of services,” said an Egyptian official supervising the country’s haj mission.

“The pilgrims went without food, water, or air conditioning for a long time.”

They died “from the heat because most people had no place” to take shelter.

Earlier this month, Saudi officials said they had cleared hundreds of thousands of unregistered pilgrims from Mecca ahead of the haj.

Other countries to report deaths during the haj this year include Indonesia, Iran and Senegal.

Most countries have not specified how many deaths were heat-related.

Saudi Health Minister Fahd bin Abdul Rahman Al-Jalajel said on Tuesday that health plans for the haj had “been successfully carried out”, preventing major outbreaks of disease and other public health threats, the official Saudi Press Agency reported.

Health officials “provided virtual consultations to over 5,800 pilgrims, primarily for heat-related illnesses, enabling prompt intervention and mitigating the potential for a surge in cases,” SPA said.