In one of the worst hajj tragedies ever, hundreds of pilgrims died in a stampede last Thursday, with Iranians accounting so far for about a third of the dead.
The cause of the stampede was pilgrims on two pedestrian walkways being sent into the same intersection, with pilgrims at the back of both lines continuing to push forward, producing a deadly crush.
The unanswered question is why the two groups were on converging paths. One of the key principles of security for the hajj is to prevent just such con-vergences, which have resulted in high death tolls in the past. The Saudis have spent huge sums to build numerous bridges and tunnels designed to keep pilgrims traveling in different directions from ever coming together.
As the Iran Times went to press Tuesday night, the final toll was not yet available. The Saudis put the death toll as of then at 769, many of them not identified by name or nationality. Iran, however, was insisting the true toll was around 2,000. Iran said 239 Iranians had been confirmed killed while 248 were listing as missing six days after the disaster.
The death toll was the second worst disaster in the history of the hajj. The only higher toll was in July 1990, 25 years ago, when 1,426 pilgrims were crushed to death in a tunnel near Mecca as they were also headed to the stoning of Satan.
This year’s deadly crush occurred along a main road, Street 204, in the tent city at Mina, where the pilgrims had spent the night. The pilgrims were using that path to walk to the site where they perform the ritual stoning of Satan. They were still a half-mile from the stoning site when more pilgrims poured into the walkway from a path, Street 223, coming in from the right.
Beyond that brief description, there was only theorizing and speculation and rumor as to why the group came in from the right.
One theory that gained much popularity in Iran said the Saudi police directed pilgrims into the intersection to clear a road for Saudi Crown Prince Salman’s convoy to use. That was propagated by the Arabic daily Ad-Diyar, published in Beirut, only hours after the disaster. The Saudi government said that was false. It said there was an entirely separate road system built for VIPs so they would never have to come in contact with ordinary pilgrims.
In Tehran, Ali Shamkhani, the secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, said the stampede was caused by the lack of trained Saudi security personnel on the ground. He said the deployment of Saudi Arabia’s best troops to fight the war in Yemen and to repress the opposition in Bahrain meant the government didn’t have enough high quality forces to provide security for the hajj. Saudi Arabia has said it had 100,000 security troops in the hajj zone. News reports have said there are only 10,000 Arab troops from Saudi Arabia and other countries in Yemen. General Ahmad-Reza Pourdastan, commander of the Iranian Army ground forces made the same point as Shamkhani, saying the Saudis had halved the number of security forces assigned to the hajj this year.
But there were Saudis ready to put the blame on Iran. Jamal Khashoggi, head of a Saudi news channel owned by a prince, said investigators were looking at the actions of a large number of Iranian pilgrims who “happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.” He said, “I think Saudi Arabia will speak very loudly on the issue when the result of the investigations come out. No statement has been made officially, but now it seems that the Iranians will be blamed because they took their hajjis in the wrong direction at the wrong time.” He did not suggest the Iranians had done that intentionally.
On the other hand, Brigadier General Masud Jazayeri, deputy chief of the Joint Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces, saw a plot, not an error. He said Israel and Saudi Arabia are close allies, and that could explain the tragedy. “Given the usurper Zionist regime’s infiltration and influence on the Saud clan, there is a growing possibility that the crane crash incident at the Grand Mosque and the death of thousands of people at Mina were the result of a deliberate crime.”
Saudi Health Minister Khaled al-Falih told a television interviewer, “Many pilgrims move without respecting timetables,” which is the “principal reason for this type of accident.” He said, “If the pilgrims had followed instructions, this type of accident could have been avoided.” His effort to blame the victims did not go over well with many people. Sanusi Lamido Sanusi of the Nigerian hajj delegation said very politely, “We are urging the Saudi authorities not to apportion blame to the pilgrims.”
Very shortly after the tragedy, Saeed Ohani, the head of Iran’s Hajj Organization, who was in Saudi Arabia, said Saudi officials had closed off two paths near the site of the accident for “unknown reasons.” He told state television that left only three routes open to reach the site for the stoning of Satan. “This caused the tragic incident,” he said. “It shows mismanagement and lack of serious attention to the safety of the pilgrims. There is no other explanation.”
The Saudis government as an institution has avoided giving any explanation until the investigation is complete. But three days after the tragedy, King Salman sacked the Hajj minister and five other officials.
In Iran, the tendency has been to put the blame higher up. The daily Kayhan ran a cartoon showing King Salman shaking hands with one of the pillars near Mecca that used to represent the devil. The Tasnim news agency ran a cartoon depicting Salman as a camel trampling on the pilgrims.
In Saudi Arabia, Shaikh Abdul Aziz ash-Shaikh, the country’s senior religious authority was quoted as telling the crown prince the tragedy was mere fate. “As for the things that humans cannot control, you are not blamed for them. Fate and destiny are inevitable,” he said.
Most countries have not been critical of how the Saudis handled the hajj arrangements. But a growing number of foreign officials have been complaining about the post-tragedy arrangements. The Saudis are trying to handle everything themselves. Hajj officials from other countries complain of not having access to their nationals in Saudi hospitals and of not being able to check the corpses.
Other questions were raised about Saudi competence in dealing with the aftermath of the crush. An AP reporter said he got to the site of the crush 10 hours after it happened and still found corpses lying on the ground. An unnamed physician was quoted as saying some who were just injured in the crush later died because they were left in the sun without water or treatment. The temperature that day reached a high of 43 degrees centigrade (110 Fahrenheit).
The Saudis have said they will launch a full and complete investigation. However, they have said nothing about participation in that investigation by officials from the countries with dead pilgrims.
There is a good chance that criticism of the Saudis will grow if they are not more open to foreign hajj officials. The head of the National Hajj Commission of Nigeria, Abdullah Mohammad, was the first to go public. Meeting with journalists in Mina, he said the proper thing was to include representatives from Nigeria and other countries to determine the cause of the tragedy and to look for solutions to prevent any recurrence. He was not angry and did not denounce the Saudi government.
With Iran disputing the official death figures issued by the Saudis, the Fars news agency Tuesday reported that the website of the Saudi Health Ministry had reported the true death toll as 4,173. But the Saudi Health Ministry said its website had apparently been hacked and a false number put up. The question then was who would have done that. Considering that Iran had been disputing the death total, some pointed a finger at the Islamic Republic.
The annual hajj is now one of the greatest concentrations of human beings in the world. It is believed that in 1920, before airlines could bring vast numbers of pilgrims from around the world, only 60,000 foreigners performed the hajj. This year, there were 2.0 million pilgrims, down from the high of 3.16 million in 2012. A Saudi official recently predicted 5 million would come in five years.
A logical question is whether such accidents are avoidable with such huge numbers of participants. But that is not a question being posed publicly now.
The largest numbers of stampedes in the past took place around the site of the stoning of Satan at what is called the Jamarat Bridge. Pilgrims would come there with handfuls of pebbles and throw them at one of three pillars representing Satan. It was often hard to hit one of the tall but narrow pillars, which would lead pilgrims to linger and mobs of people to form.
In 2004, the Saudis removed the pillars and put up wall that no one could miss. But still there were dense crowds. So, in 2007, the Saudis built a five-story structure so the pilgrims could pass the wall on any of the five levels to throw stones at Satan. That seems to have relieved that site as a problem.