Saudi Arabia hajj disaster death toll at least 2,121

[webfact]

Saudi Arabia hajj disaster death toll at least 2,121
JON GAMBRELL, Associated Press

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — The crush and stampede that struck the hajj last month in Saudi Arabia killed at least 2,121 pilgrims, a new Associated Press tally showed Monday, after officials in the kingdom met to discuss the tragedy.

The toll keeps rising from the Sept. 24 disaster outside Mecca as individual countries identify bodies and work to determine the whereabouts of hundreds of pilgrims still missing. The official Saudi toll of 769 people killed and 934 injured has not changed since Sept. 26, and officials have yet to address the discrepancy.

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Naif bin Abdul Aziz, who is also the kingdom's interior minister, oversaw a meeting late Sunday about the disaster in Mina, according to the official Saudi Press Agency. The agency's report did not mention any official response to the rising death toll.

"The crown prince was reassured on the progress of the investigations," the SPA report said. "He directed the committee's members to continue their efforts to find the causes of the accident, praying to Allah Almighty to accept the martyrs and wishing the injured a speedy recovery."

King Salman ordered the investigation into the disaster, the deadliest in the history of the annual pilgrimage. It came after a crane collapse in Mecca earlier that month killed 111 worshippers, and the twin disasters marred the first hajj to be overseen by the king since he ascended to the throne at the start of this year.

The Saudi king holds the title of "Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques," and the monarchy's supervision of the hajj is a source of great prestige in the Muslim world. Riyadh has rejected a suggestion by Shiite power Iran, its main regional rival, to have an independent body take over planning and administering the five-day hajj pilgrimage, which is required of all able-bodied Muslims once in their lifetimes.

Iran has repeatedly blamed the disaster on the Saudi royal family, accusing it of mismanagement and of covering up the real death toll, which Tehran says exceeds 4,700, without providing evidence.

"The lying and hypercritical bodies, which claim to (be promoting) human rights, as well as the Western governments, which sometimes make great fuss over the death of a single person, remained dead silent in this incident in favor of their allied government," Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Monday, according to a transcript on his website.

"If they were sincere, these self-proclaimed advocates of human rights should have demanded accountability, compensation, guarantee for non-recurrence and punishment for the perpetrators of this catastrophe."

Iran and Saudi Arabia are deeply divided on a host of regional issues and back opposite sides in the wars in Syria and Yemen, where a Saudi-led coalition has been at war with Iran-backed Shiite rebels, known as Houthis, since March.

Saudi Arabia has meanwhile been targeted in gun and bomb attacks by an affiliate of the extremist Islamic State group, which holds a third of Iraq and Syria in its self-declared "caliphate." Like al-Qaida before it, the IS group views the Saudi royal family as illegitimate because of alleged corruption and its alliance with the United States.

The AP count of the dead from the Mina crush and stampede comes from state media reports and officials' comments from 30 of the over 180 countries that sent citizens to the hajj.

Iran leads all the affected countries, saying it had 465 pilgrims killed. Many of the dead also came from Africa. Nigeria said it lost 199 people, while Mali lost 198, Cameroon lost 76, Niger lost 72, Senegal lost 61, and Ivory Coast and Benin both lost 52.

Others include Egypt with 182, Bangladesh with 137, Indonesia with 126, India with 116, Pakistan with 102, Ethiopia with 47, Chad with 43, Morocco with 36, Algeria with 33, Sudan with 30, Burkina Faso with 22, Tanzania with 20, Somalia with 10, Kenya with eight, Ghana and Turkey with seven, Myanmar and Libya with six, China with four, Afghanistan with two and Jordan and Malaysia with one.

The previous deadliest-ever incident at hajj was a 1990 stampede that killed 1,426 people.
___

Associated Press writers Baba Ahmed in Dakar, Senegal, Rahim Faiez in Kabul, Afghanistan, and Abdi Guled contributed to this report.


-- (c) Associated Press 2015-10-20

[ezzra]

Needless death and tragedy in the name of religion.. is it worth it? they went there in order to

be enlighten and not die, what Haj is good when you're dead?

would it happened again, most likely yes, as it did happened before and lessons were no learned...

Edited October 20, 2015 by ezzra

[fritzzz25]

what a shame......

[CaptHaddock]

The Saudis are idiots. This problem is completely avoidable. They have to redesign the space for effective crowd control. Engineers understand what causes crowds to panic. A redesign could eliminate the cause.

[soalbundy]

Needless death and tragedy in the name of religion.. is it worth it? they went there in order to

be enlighten and not die, what Haj is good when you're dead?

would it happened again, most likely yes, as it did happened before and lessons were no learned...

Well they are certainly enlightened now, ''What, no virgins''?

[Scott]

Off-topic post removed.

[Srikcir]

Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said, "If they were sincere, these self-proclaimed advocates of human rights should have demanded accountability, compensation, guarantee for non-recurrence and punishment for the perpetrators of this catastrophe."

Since Iran is not a self-proclaimed advocate of human rights, it exempts ITSELF from such demands. It seems ethical and moral standards only apply when politically advantageous.

See who is "free." https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/freedom-world-2015#.ViXUdysU6oo

[gchurch259]

I believe the "One God" is tired of some of the things a certain culture is doing in His name !!

[khunianb]

The tragedy was caused by diversion of pilgrims to accommodate the visit of a prince. That seems to be a reason for covering up the disaster.

[Chicog]

The tragedy was caused by diversion of pilgrims to accommodate the visit of a prince. That seems to be a reason for covering up the disaster.

Do you have a source or is that just chinese (or saudi) whispers?

Ah.

On Saturday, Saudi Arabia categorically denied "misleading and distorted allegations" about road closures that it believes started through Iranian state-controlled media.

"Claims that the stampede occurred following road closures because of a ministerial event or a dignitaries convoy are false," said Prince Mohammed bin Nawaf Al Saud, Saudi ambassador to the United Kingdom and Ireland, in a statement.

Edited October 20, 2015 by Chicog

[khunianb]

The tragedy was caused by diversion of pilgrims to accommodate the visit of a prince. That seems to be a reason for covering up the disaster.

Do you have a source or is that just chinese (or saudi) whispers?

Ah.

On Saturday, Saudi Arabia categorically denied "misleading and distorted allegations" about road closures that it believes started through Iranian state-controlled media.

"Claims that the stampede occurred following road closures because of a ministerial event or a dignitaries convoy are false," said Prince Mohammed bin Nawaf Al Saud, Saudi ambassador to the United Kingdom and Ireland, in a statement.

The Lebanese daily al Diyar is the source referenced in many news articles. The Saudis are totally untrustworthy - it was God's will! They still will not admit the real number of dead.

[Chicog]

That's because they can't count.

Added: In fairness Al Dayir is a pro-Shi'a newspaper, so I wouldn't exactly trust them not to stir the pot with a few "exaggerations".

Edited October 20, 2015 by Chicog

[Scott]

An inflammatory post has been removed.

[dabhand]

Wiki has a report that the death toll may be in excess of 7,000.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_Mina_stampede

Their source is a story in the Salem News, a US publication, which has a listing (unsurprisingly in Arabic) of 7,477 noted as 'killed in the hajj'.

http://www.salem-news.com/articles/october202015/hajj-stampede-total.php

Really shocking, if true, but it may be that the numbers include all deaths, for whatever reason, during the hajj period.

No real certainty on the cause of the 'stampede' incident but the story implicating a Saudi prince would not be a surprise and will be highly unlikely to be officially confirmed, if indeed it was the case.

Any Royalty connected disaster will never be freely admitted to in Saudi Arabia.

I recall a plane disaster at Riyadh airport back in 1980. A Saudia plane (Saudia 163 with 301 on board), just taken off for Jeddah, returned to the airport after an on-board fire emergency. Rather than stopping on the runway immediately upon landing, it taxied for a few minutes to clear the runway and, as a result, the delay meant that all on board perished. The official report was considered a whitewash by local expats (I arrived in Riyadh about one month after the event) as eye witnesses had seen the King's plane taking off just after the doomed plane had landed. It was well understood that no-one held up the King, no matter the reason.

Edited October 21, 2015 by dabhand

[Johpa]

I believe the "One God" is tired of some of the things a certain culture is doing in His name !!

I am not a believer, but I think that it is the "one god" meme that is sorely tired and becoming an anathema to modern culture.

[AhFarangJa]

Hard to believe that King Salman is organising an investigation when he has been in a Psychiatric Hospital for the past two months suffering dementia.

[Chicog]

Be nice if he could go over Xmas, I'll get my holiday back.

[dabhand]

Be nice if he could go over Xmas, I'll get my holiday back.

Yes, timing of such events can have good and bad repercussions.

The death of King Khalid in 1982 was a major issue to expats (and probably a fair number of football loving Saudis) with it happening, rather inconveniently, at the start of the Spain world cup!!

I had been working in Athens for a few days, watched the England/France game, then returned to Riyadh looking forward to seeing the rest of the competition. Wrong! Arrived back to much gnashing of teeth with the only topic of conversation being 'how long is the xxxxxx mourning period?'.

No satellite TV in those days so we just had to wait it out with only Paddy Feeny as a link to the real world. Think it lasted for about 15 days - any period in Riyadh felt like an age but that was agony!! I seem to recall there was also an issue due to one of the refs being an Israeli. Gotta love the place!

[AhFarangJa]

Be nice if he could go over Xmas, I'll get my holiday back.

Let us pray.....