Hajj Death Toll Hits 1,100 as Saudi Official Defends Management
Over 1,100 pilgrims have died during the Hajj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia, with many more reported missing. The tragedy has sparked widespread concern and grief, with families and friends desperately searching for loved ones. Despite the challenges, many have defended the organization of the event, citing the intense heat as a major factor in the high number of fatalities.
After completing the Hajj, pilgrims typically get to celebrate with their loved ones when they return home. But hundreds more families in Jordan, Pakistan, Indonesia, and Egypt are grieving this year.
The pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia, which took place from Friday, June 14, to Wednesday, June 19, saw over a thousand pilgrims pass away. On Monday, June 17, temperatures reached over 50°C.
With the number of fatalities from the annual Hajj ceremonies in Saudi Arabia rising above 1,100, worried relatives and friends are now actively looking for missing pilgrims.
Family members were frantically searching hospitals and posting desperate online appeals for information, fearing the worst for their loved ones after temperatures in Mecca, Islam's holiest city, reached a scorching 51.8 degrees Celsius (125 degrees Fahrenheit) on Monday, June 17.
This year's Hajj pilgrimage drew approximately 1.8 million participants from globally, including numerous elderly and frail individuals, who braved the scorching Saudi summer heat during the multi-day, largely outdoor ritual.
According to an Arab ambassador, the intense heat was the main reason why the number of deaths among Egyptians alone had risen from over 300 the day before to at least 600. With this amount, 922 deaths have been documented overall.
The ambassador went on to say that 1,400 reports of missing pilgrims, including the 600 who died, had been received by Egyptian officials in Saudi Arabia.
Mabrouka bint Salem Shushana, a pilgrim from Tunisia, who is in her early seventies, is one of the missing pilgrims. According to her spouse Mohammed, she has not been seen since the pilgrimage's pinnacle on Mount Arafat on Saturday, June 19. She was not permitted to enter air-conditioned facilities since she was not registered and did not have an official Hajj permit.
“She's an old lady. She was tired. She was feeling so hot, and she had no place to sleep,” he said.
“I looked for her in all the hospitals. Until now I don't have a clue.”
Facebook and other social media platforms have been flooded with images of missing pilgrims and pleas for information about their whereabouts. The family and friends of Ghada Mahmoud Ahmed Dawood, an Egyptian pilgrim who has been missing since Saturday, June 15, are among those desperately seeking updates and news about their loved one.
A Saudi Arabian family friend, who wished to remain anonymous so as not to offend Saudi authorities, stated, “I got a call from her daughter in Egypt begging me to put any post on Facebook that can help track her or find her.”
“The good news is that until now we did not find her on the list of the dead people, which gives us hope she is still alive.”
Hajj, a fundamental pillar of Islam, is a once-in-a-lifetime obligation for Muslims who have the physical and financial means to undertake it. Following the Islamic lunar calendar, the pilgrimage takes place at a different time each year on the Gregorian calendar. Unfortunately, in recent years, the outdoor rituals have fallen during the scorching Saudi summer, posing significant challenges for pilgrims.
According to a recent study conducted in Saudi Arabia, the region's temperatures are increasing by 0.4 degrees Celsius (0.72 degrees Fahrenheit) every ten years. Reports of fatalities have come from Egypt, Jordan, Indonesia, Iran, Senegal, Tunisia, and the autonomous Kurdistan area of Iraq; however, many authorities have not disclosed the reasons behind them.
Jordanian officials are scrambling to locate 20 pilgrims who remain missing, after a significant number of initially reported cases were resolved when 80 individuals were found receiving medical care in hospitals. Meanwhile, the death toll for Indian pilgrims has risen to at least 68, according to an Asian diplomat, with concerns remaining for additional individuals whose whereabouts are still unknown.
“Some (died) because of natural causes and we had many old-age pilgrims. And some are due to the weather conditions, that's what we assume,” he said.
Saudi Arabia reported more than 2,700 cases of heat exhaustion on Sunday alone, but it has not released official statistics on fatalities. More than 200 pilgrims, primarily from Indonesia, were reportedly killed in 2023.
The prohibitively high cost of official permits forces many pilgrims to seek alternative, unofficial means to perform the Hajj annually. Nevertheless, the introduction of a general tourism visa by Saudi Arabia in 2019 has inadvertently facilitated this trend, making it easier for pilgrims to circumvent official channels, notes Umer Karim, an expert on Saudi politics at the University of Birmingham.
“For these tourist visa guys, it's like being on the migrant route without any idea of what to expect,” he said.
Tragically, many of the Egyptian pilgrims who perished were unregistered, according to an Arab diplomat. But even those with official permits, like Houria Ahmad Abdallah Sharif, a 70-year-old grandmother, can fall victim to the chaos. She vanished on Saturday after stepping away to clean her abaya at a public restroom on Mount Arafat, leaving her loved ones in a desperate search for answers.
“We've searched for her from door to door and we have not found her until now,” said a friend, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
“We know many who are still searching for their family members and relatives and they are not finding them, or if they are finding them they are finding them dead,” the friend added.
A high ranking Saudi official has defended the Gulf state's handling of the Hajj pilgrimage after over 1,100 deaths were reported from other nations, many of which were linked to the intense heat.
In the government's initial remarks regarding the deaths, the official stated, “The state did not fail, but there was a misjudgment on the part of people who did not appreciate the risks.”
As of Friday, June 21, a comprehensive count based on official reports and diplomatic sources revealed a devastating death toll of 1,126, with Egypt bearing the brunt of the tragedy, accounting for over half of the fatalities.
A senior Saudi official disclosed that the Saudi government has confirmed 577 fatalities during the two most congested days of the Hajj pilgrimage: Saturday, when pilgrims endured hours of prayers under scorching sunlight on Mount Arafat, and Sunday, when they took part in the crowded stoning of the devil ritual in Mina.
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