More than 1,300 people have died this month in Saudi Arabia during the Islamic hajj pilgrimage, most of whom the Saudi government says did not have permits, and many walked miles in scorching heat after paying thousands of dollars to illegal tour operators.
Pilgrims with permits travel around the holy city in air-conditioned buses and rest in air-conditioned tents, but unregistered pilgrims are more exposed to the elements. With temperatures reaching above 120 degrees Fahrenheit in recent days, some pilgrims said they saw people passing out and bodies lying in the streets.
In an interview on state television on Sunday, Saudi Health Minister Fahad Al-Jaragel said 83 percent of the 1,301 reported deaths were caused by undocumented pilgrims.
“The rising temperatures during the Hajj season have been a major challenge this year,” he said. “Unfortunately, and this is painful for all of us, those without Hajj permits have had to walk long distances under the sun.”
Aljaragel’s comments came after several days of Saudi Arabia’s silence about the deaths during the hajj, a difficult and deeply spiritual ritual that Muslims are encouraged to undertake at least once in their lifetime if possible.
With nearly 2 million people taking part in the pilgrimage each year, it is not uncommon for pilgrims to die from heatstroke, illness or chronic diseases. Saudi Arabia does not regularly release statistics, so it is unclear whether this year’s death toll was higher than usual. In 1985, more than 1,700 people died around the holy sites, most of them from heatstroke or chronic diseases. study at the time it was discovered.
But many of those who died did not have permits, and this year’s death toll exposes the dark world of illegal tour operators and smugglers who profit from Muslims eager to make the journey.
The death also highlighted what appeared to be failures in Saudi Arabia’s immigration and security procedures aimed at preventing unregistered pilgrims from reaching the holy site, such as the security cordon that sealed off the area around Mecca in the weeks before the Hajj.
Despite these efforts, Saudi Arabian officials say an estimated 400,000 illegal immigrants have attempted the pilgrimage this year. Said He spoke to Agence France-Presse on condition of anonymity.
Saudi authorities did not respond to requests for comment.
But in interviews with The New York Times, Hajj tour operators, pilgrims and family members of those killed described easily exploitable loopholes that allow them to travel to Saudi Arabia on tourist or visitor visas before the Hajj. Once there, they said, they encounter a network of illegal brokers and smugglers who offer them money for their services or sometimes abandon them to fend for themselves.
The number of unregistered pilgrims appears to have risen this year due to growing economic hardship in countries such as Egypt and Jordan. Official hajj packages can cost anywhere from $5,000 to more than $10,000 depending on a pilgrim’s country of origin, far beyond the financial means of many who want to make the journey.
Marwa, a 32-year-old Egyptian woman whose parents performed the hajj this year without official permission, said she paid about $2,000 for the trip through an Egyptian agent and a Saudi Arabian broker. She said she felt she had to leave soon because her savings were dwindling every year as Egypt’s currency fell. Marwa asked to only use her first name to avoid legal action.
Several countries that recorded large numbers of pilgrim deaths have acted swiftly to address the impact.
On Friday, the president of Tunisia, where more than 50 pilgrims were among the dead, fired the country’s minister of religious affairs. In Jordan, which has recorded the deaths of at least 99 pilgrims, prosecutors have opened an investigation into illegal Hajj routes. And in Egypt, authorities said they would revoke the licenses of 16 companies that issued visas without providing pilgrims with proper services.
“There’s a lot of greed in this industry,” said Iman Ahmed, co-owner of El Iman Tours in Cairo.
Ahmed said he refused to send unregistered pilgrims on Hajj packages, but other Egyptian tour operators and Saudi Arabian brokers were making a lot of money by doing so.
One of the unregistered pilgrims who died was Safa al-Tawab, a grandmother from the Egyptian city of Luxor, said her brother, Ahmed al-Tawab. Al-Tawab, 55, was unable to obtain a hajj permit but found an Egyptian travel agency that would take her for about $3,000, he said.
Altawab was unaware he was breaking the rules when he traveled to Saudi Arabia last month, his brother said, and told relatives he was placed in inadequate accommodation and barred from leaving after he arrived. Tour companies had promised air-conditioned buses to transport pilgrims around Mecca, but Altawab instead ended up walking miles in the scorching sun, his brother said.
Al-Tawab died during the pilgrimage, but her brother contacted a representative of the tour company who assured them she was OK and had then turned off her mobile phone, Al-Tawab said.
Ahead of the Hajj, Saudi Arabian authorities posted signs and sent mass text messages reminding people that performing the pilgrimage without a permit is illegal and that violators will be subject to fines, deportation and a ban on re-entering the kingdom.
Entry into Mecca was closed to unlicensed visitors for several weeks before the hajj, but many pilgrims evaded the restrictions, arriving early and hiding in Mecca or paying smugglers to transport them into the city.
The Hajj is a physically demanding undertaking even for the young and healthy, and many pilgrims are old or infirm by the time they undertake the journey. Some believe the Hajj is a final rite, and that dying in Mecca will bestow great blessings.
The Saudi Arabian government has taken measures to mitigate the effects of the heat, including spraying pilgrims with mist and installing sunshades in some areas.
Abdulhalim Dahir, a 31-year-old Kenyan pilgrim who performed the hajj with his brother and father using an official permit, said the journey had been mostly smooth, with air-conditioned tents, air-conditioned buses and easy access to water.
“It was an amazing, once in a lifetime experience,” he said.
But some people who were in Mecca with documents complained that there were insufficient facilities to protect them from the heat.
Makhdoom Ali, a 36-year-old Pakistani computer engineer who was visiting with his 65-year-old mother, said he saw several pilgrims collapse with heatstroke and unable to get immediate help.
Despite his joy at completing the Hajj, Ali said he was troubled by the difficulties they encountered and worried about his mother’s health throughout the journey.
“Many lives could have been saved if the government had responded better,” Ali said.
Al-Jarajer said a quarter of the medical services provided during the Hajj are for undocumented immigrants. “We treat them as pilgrims and provide them full services, regardless of their permit, race or nationality,” he said.
At least two Americans were among the dead.
Isatou Ourie, 65, and Alieu Ourie, 71, of Maryland, saved up for years for the pilgrimage and paid $23,000 to a local tour operator, said their daughter, Saida Ourie.
But after arriving in Mecca, operators told them to stay in their hotel until a permit was issued and promised transport might not always be available, they told their daughter, frustrating because her parents believed they were playing “by the book,” Uri said.
They were still able to perform some of the early rituals of the hajj and were “very excited to see” the Kaaba, the cube-shaped structure to which pilgrims travel, she said.
But the last message she received from her mother said buses to one of the evacuation centres hadn’t arrived and she had instead been walking for two hours.
Despite his frustrations with tour operators and difficulties finding his parents’ bodies, which were buried in Mecca, Urie believes his parents were filled with joy in their final days.
“They died doing exactly what they wanted to do,” she said. “They had always wanted to go to Hajj.”
Hagar El Hakim, Lana F. Swaith, Zia-ur-Rehman, Saif Hasnat, Mujib Mashal, Safak Timur, Aida Alami and Muktita Suhartono Contributed report.
