Riyadh: The death toll from this year’s hajj has exceeded 1,000, with more than half of the fatalities being unregistered worshippers who undertook the pilgrimage in extreme heat in Saudi Arabia, according to an AFP tally on Thursday.
Among the new deaths reported, 58 were from Egypt. An Arab diplomat provided a breakdown showing that of the 658 total deaths from that country, 630 were unregistered pilgrims.
In total, around 10 countries have reported 1,081 deaths during the annual pilgrimage. These figures have been gathered from official statements or diplomats working on their countries’ responses. The hajj, which follows the lunar Islamic calendar, fell again this year during
the intense heat of the Saudi summer. The national meteorological centre reported a
high of 51.8 degrees Celsius (125 degrees
Fahrenheit) earlier this week at the Grand Mosque in Mecca.
According to a Saudi study published last month, temperatures in the area are rising by 0.4 degrees Celsius each decade.
Each year, tens of thousands of pilgrims attempt to perform 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 earlier this month, but it appears many still participated in the main rites which began last Friday.
This group was more vulnerable to the heat because, without official permits, they could not access air-conditioned spaces provided by Saudi authorities for the 1.8 million authorised pilgrims to cool down after hours of walking and praying outside. In addition to Egypt, fatalities have also been confirmed by Malaysia, Pakistan, India, Jordan, Indonesia, Iran, Senegal, Tunisia, and Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan region, though in many cases authorities have not specified the cause.