January 25, 2019
Saudi Arabia has paid compensation to families of the Iranian nationals killed in the 2015 collapse of a crane in the grand mosque of Mecca, the head of Iran’s Hajj and Pilgrimage Organization has announced.
Speaking at a press conference December 24, Alireza Rashidian neglected to say how much was being paid to the victims’ families.
Earlier in December, officials from Iran and Saudi Arabia said they had agreed that 86,500 Iranian pilgrims would go on pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia in the coming hajj season. That is an increase of 10,000 from last year.
In September 2015, a large construction crane toppled over during a violent rainstorm in Mecca and crashed into the Masjid al-Haram, killing more than 100 pilgrims, including five Iranians.
A few days later, about 2,400 people lost their lives in a deadly crush when groups of pilgrims walked down the same pedestrian corridor from opposite directions and collided with one another.
That crush was the deadliest incident in the history of the pilgrimage. According to an Associated Press count based on statements from 36 countries that lost citizens in the disaster, more than 2,400 pilgrims were killed. The largest number of deaths from any one country was 464 from Iran.
The Saudis named an investigating body, but no report has even been issued. And Rashidian said nothing about any payment of compensation for the dead and injured in that crush.