More than 1,000 people die at hajj pilgrimage 2024 amid extreme heat in Saudi Arabia, AFP reports

June 20, 2024 Benjamin Hughes

Riyadh — The death toll from this year’s hajj has exceeded 1,000, an AFP tally said on Thursday, more than half of them unregistered worshippers who performed the pilgrimage in extreme heat in Saudi Arabia. The new deaths reported Thursday included 58 from Egypt, according to an Arab diplomat who provided a breakdown showing that of 658 total dead from that country, 630 were unregistered.

All told around 10 countries have reported 1,081 deaths during the annual pilgrimage, one of the five pillars of Islam which all Muslims with the means must complete at least once. The figures have come via official statements or from diplomats working on their countries’ responses.

The hajj, whose timing is determined by the lunar Islamic calendar, fell again this year during the oven-like Saudi summer.

Hajj pilgrimage in Mecca — Pilgrims worship and circumambulate around the Kaaba, a stone building at the center of the Grand Mosque in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, after fulfilling the hajj pilgrimage, June 19, 2024.

Issam Rimawi/Anadolu/Getty

The national meteorological center reported a high of 51.8 degrees Celsius (125 degrees Fahrenheit) earlier this week at the Grand Mosque in Mecca. Egyptian officials reached by CBS News would not confirm the figures stated by the AFP, but dozens of videos posted on social media in recent days showed bodies laying on the streets around the Grand Mosque.

Source: cbsnews.com