Hajj death toll surges past 900
by Agencies
The death toll from the scorching heat in Saudi Arabia surged past 900 hajj pilgrims on Wednesday, June 19, as friends and family searched for missing loved ones.
An Arab diplomat told Agence France-Presse (AFP) that deaths among Egyptians alone had jumped to “at least 600,” from more than 300 a day earlier, mostly from the unforgiving heat. That figure brought the total reported dead so far to 922, according to an AFP tally of figures released by various countries.
Pilgrims at this year’s Hajj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia faced intense high temperatures at Islamic holy sites in the desert kingdom, officials said 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 neighborhood 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 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 2 million people to Saudi Arabia. There have been stampedes and epidemics throughout 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 health care,” 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 preexisting 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 C (125 F) 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.
Saudi Arabia has spent billions of dollars on crowd control and safety measures for those attending the annual five-day pilgrimage, but the sheer number of participants makes ensuring their safety difficu
