Hundreds die during Hajj pilgrimage amid intense heat

MECCA (AP):

Hundreds of people died during this year’s Hajj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia as the faithful faced intense high temperatures at Islamic holy sites in the desert kingdom, officials said on Wednesday as people tried to claim their loved ones’ bodies.

Saudi Arabia has not commented on the death toll amid the heat during the pilgrimage, required of every able Muslim once in their life, nor offered any causes for those who died. However, hundreds of people had lined up at the Emergency Complex in Al-Muaisem neighbourhood in Mecca, trying to get information about their missing family members.

One list circulating online suggested at least 550 people died during the five-day Hajj. A medic who spoke to The Associated Press (AP) on condition of anonymity to discuss information not released publicly by the government, said that the names listed appeared genuine. That medic and another official, who also spoke on condition of anonymity, said they believed at least 600 bodies were at the facility.

Deaths aren’t uncommon at the Hajj, which has drawn at times over two million people to Saudi Arabia. There have been stampedes and epidemics through the pilgrimage’s history.

Each year, the Hajj draws hundreds of thousands of pilgrims from low-income nations, “many of whom have had little, if any, pre- Hajj healthcare,” an article in the April edition of the Journal of Infection and Public Health said. Communicable illnesses can spread among the gathered masses, many of whom saved their entire lives for their trips, and can be elderly with pre-existing health conditions, the paper added.

However, the number of dead this year suggests something caused the number of deaths to swell. Already, several countries have said some of their pilgrims died because of the heat that swept across the holy sites at Mecca, including Jordan and Tunisia.

Temperatures on Tuesday reached 47 degrees Celsius (117 degrees Fahrenheit) in Mecca and the sacred sites in and around the city, according to the Saudi National Center for Meteorology. Onlookers saw some people faint while trying to perform the symbolic stoning of the Devil,

At the Grand Mosque in Mecca, temperatures reached 51.8 degrees Celsius (125 degrees Fahrenheit) on Monday, though pilgrims had already left for Mina, authorities said.

Others, including many Egyptians, lost track of their loved ones in the heat and the crowds. More than 1.83 million Muslims performed the Hajj in 2024, including more than 1.6 million pilgrims from 22 countries, and around 222,000 Saudi citizens and residents, according to the Saudi Hajj authorities.

On Wednesday at the medical complex in Mecca, an Egyptian man collapsed to the ground when he heard the name of his mother among the dead. He cried for some time before grabbing his cell phone and calling a travel agent, shouting: “He left her to die!” The crowd tried to calm the man.

Security appeared tight at the complex, with an official reading out names of the dead and the nationalities, which included people from Algeria, Egypt and India. Those who said they were kin of the dead were allowed inside to identify the deceased.

The AP could not independently confirm the causes of death for those bodies held at the complex. Saudi officials did not respond to questions seeking more information.