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The death toll from this year’s hajj has exceeded 1,000, an AFP tally said Thursday, more than half unregistered worshippers who performed the pilgrimage in extreme heat in Saudi Arabia.

The new deaths reported Thursday included 58 from Egypt, according to an Arab diplomat who provided a breakdown showing that of 658 Egyptians who died, 630 were unregistered pilgrims.

Around 10 countries have reported 1,081 deaths during the pilgrimage, one of the five pillars of Islam which all Muslims with the means must complete at least once.

The hajj, whose timing is determined by the lunar Islamic calendar, fell again this year during the oven-like Saudi summer.

The national meteorological centre reported a high of 51.8 degrees Celsius (125 Fahrenheit) this week at the Grand Mosque in Mecca.

A Saudi study published last month said temperatures in the area are rising 0.4 degrees Celsius each decade.

Each year tens of thousands of pilgrims try to join the hajj through irregular channels as they cannot afford the often costly official permits.

Saudi authorities reported clearing hundreds of thousands of unregistered pilgrims from Mecca this month, but it appears many still participated in the main rites which began last Friday.

This group was more vulnerable, because without official permits they could not access air-conditioned spaces provided for the 1.8 million authorised pilgrims to cool down.

“People were tired after being chased by security forces before Arafat day. They were exhausted,” one Arab diplomat told AFP on Thursday of Saturday’s day-long outdoor prayers that marked the hajj’s climax.

The diplomat said the main cause of death among Egyptian pilgrims was the heat, which triggered complications related to high blood pressure and other issues.

Egyptian officials were visiting hospitals to obtain information and help Egyptian pilgrims get medical care, the foreign ministry said in a statement on Thursday.

“However, there are large numbers of Egyptian citizens who are not registered in hajj databases, which requires double the effort and a longer time to search for missing persons and find their relatives,” it said.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi has ordered that a “crisis cell” headed by the prime minister follow up on the deaths of the country’s pilgrims.

Sisi stressed “the need for immediate coordination with the Saudi authorities to facilitate receiving the bodies of the deceased and streamline the process,” said a statement from his office.

Burials begin

More fatalities were also confirmed on Thursday by Pakistan and Indonesia.

Out of around 150,000 pilgrims, Pakistan has so far recorded 58 deaths, a diplomat told AFP.

“I think given the number of people, given the weather, this is just natural,” the diplomat said.

Indonesia, which had around 240,000 pilgrims, raised its death toll to 183,  its religious affairs ministry said, compared with 313 deaths recorded last year.

Deaths have also been confirmed by Malaysia, India, Jordan, Iran, Senegal, Tunisia, Sudan and Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan region. In many cases, authorities have not specified the cause.

Friends and relatives have been searching for missing pilgrims, scouring hospitals and pleading online for news, fearing the worst.

Two diplomats told AFP Thursday that Saudi authorities had begun the burial process for dead pilgrims, cleaning the bodies and putting them in white burial cloth and taking them to be interred.

“The burial is done by the Saudi authorities. They have their own system so we just follow that,” said one diplomat, who said his country was working to notify loved ones as best it could.

The other diplomat said that given the number of fatalities it would be impossible to notify many families ahead of time, especially in Egypt which accounts for so many of the dead.

Jordan’s foreign ministry said on Thursday that Saudi authorities had granted 68 permits for Jordanian pilgrims to be buried in Mecca.

Sixteen Jordanians remain missing and 22 are in hospital, including seven who are in critical condition, the foreign ministry said in a statement.

‘Extreme danger’

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

Last year various countries reported more than 300 deaths during the hajj, mostly Indonesians.

The timing of the hajj moves back about 11 days each year in the Gregorian calendar, meaning that next year it will take place earlier in June, potentially in cooler conditions.

A 2019 study by the journal Geophysical Research Letters said because of climate change, heat stress for hajj pilgrims will exceed the “extreme danger threshold” from 2047 to 2052 and 2079 to 2086, “with increasing frequency and intensity as the century progresses”.

Hosting the hajj is a source of prestige for the Saudi royal family, and King Salman’s official title includes the words “Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques”, in Mecca and Medina.

The hajj has seen a number of disasters over the years, most recently in 2015 when a stampede during the “stoning the devil” ritual killed up to 2,300 people.

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© Agence France-Presse

Riyadh, Saudi Arabia – Friends and family searched for missing hajj pilgrims on Wednesday as the death toll at the annual rituals, which were carried out in scorching heat, surged past 900.

Relatives scoured hospitals and pleaded online for news, fearing the worst after temperatures hit 51.8 degrees Celsius (125 Fahrenheit) in Mecca, Islam’s holiest city, on Monday.

About 1.8 million people from all over the world, many old and infirm, took part in the days-long, mostly outdoor pilgrimage, which this year fell during the oven-like Saudi summer.

An Arab diplomat told 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.

The diplomat later added that Egyptian officials in Saudi Arabia had received “1,400 reports of missing pilgrims”, including the 600 dead.

Mabrouka bint Salem Shushana of Tunisia, in her early 70s, has been missing since the climax of the pilgrimage on Saturday at Mount Arafat, her husband Mohammed told AFP on Wednesday.

Because she was unregistered and did not have an official hajj permit, she was unable to access air-conditioned facilities that allow pilgrims to cool down, he said.

“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 networks have been flooded with pictures of the missing and requests for information.

Those searching for news include family and friends of Ghada Mahmoud Ahmed Dawood, an Egyptian pilgrim unaccounted for since Saturday.

“I received a call from her daughter in Egypt begging me to put any post on Facebook that can help track her or find her,” said one family friend based in Saudi Arabia, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he did not want to anger Saudi authorities.

“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.”

Searing heat

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

Its timing is determined by the Islamic lunar calendar, shifting forward each year in the Gregorian calendar.

For the past several years the mainly outdoor rituals have fallen during the sweltering Saudi summer.

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

In addition to Egypt, fatalities have also been confirmed by Jordan, Indonesia, Iran, Senegal, Tunisia and Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan region, though in many cases authorities have not specified the cause.

A second Arab diplomat told AFP on Wednesday that Jordanian officials were looking for 20 missing pilgrims, though 80 others who were initially reported missing were located in hospitals.

An Asian diplomat told AFP there were “around 68 dead” from India and that others were missing.

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

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

‘No news’

Each year tens of thousands of pilgrims attempt to perform the hajj through irregular channels as they cannot afford the often costly official permits.

This has become easier since 2019 when Saudi Arabia introduced a general tourism visa, said Umer Karim, an expert on Saudi politics at the University of Birmingham.

“Before, the only people who could have done that were residents of the kingdom, and they know the situation,” he said.

“For these tourist visa guys, it’s like being on the migrant route without any idea of what to expect.”

One of the Arab diplomats who spoke to AFP on Wednesday said many of the dead Egyptians were unregistered.

Even pilgrims who have official permits can be vulnerable, including Houria Ahmad Abdallah Sharif, a 70-year-old Egyptian pilgrim who has been missing since Saturday.

After praying on Mount Arafat, she told a friend she wanted to go to a public bathroom to clean her abaya, but she never came back.

“We’ve searched for her from door to door and we have not found her until now,” said the friend, who also 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.

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© Agence France-Presse