Pilgrimage
Heat deaths in Mecca: Egypt searches for missing people
During the annual Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca, over 300 Egyptians lost their lives this year due to the extreme heat. Photo
© Rafiq Maqbool/AP/dpa
Around 1.8 million pilgrims took part in the pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia this year, which was accompanied by temperatures of around 50 degrees. Hundreds died and many are missing.
Following reports of hundreds of deaths due to extreme heat in the Muslim According to Egypt, the Hajj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia has sent its own reconnaissance teams to Mecca. They are to gather information about missing Egyptian citizens, the Foreign Ministry in Cairo announced.
There had previously been reports that over 300 Egyptians had died due to the extreme heat during the pilgrimage. There have been no official statements from Cairo on this so far.
According to the information, the Egyptian teams should visit hospitals, among other places. They should look for corpses or Egyptians who are being treated in order to compare them with the lists of missing people. A large number of Egyptian pilgrims are not registered in the database provided for the pilgrimage, the Foreign Ministry said. The search for the missing people could therefore take more time.
The private Egyptian news site Masrawy had previously reported that 323 people had died during this year’s Hajj pilgrimage. The report included a list of the names of the dead. The report could not initially be independently verified.
Around 1.8 million pilgrims took part in the pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia this year, which is one of the five basic duties of Islam. The pilgrimage began in Mecca on Friday evening in scorching heat. It ended on Tuesday. Temperatures at the sites holy to Muslims in the area were around 50 degrees Celsius. Jordan, Tunisia and Senegal, among others, reported the deaths of some of their citizens.