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AFP News

Relatives search for missing pilgrims after hajj heat deaths

Friends and families of missing Hajj pilgrims searched hospitals and asked for news online on Wednesday, fearing the worst after hundreds died during the annual rites in Saudi Arabia. Arab diplomats told AFP on Tuesday that at least 550 pilgrims had died this year, the majority from the heat. -related illnesses after temperatures reached 51.8 degrees Celsius (125 Fahrenheit) in Mecca, Islam’s holiest city. The total number of deaths reported so far stands at 645, according to an AFP tally based on figures published by different countries. Around 1.8 million people attended the pilgrimage. Tunisian Mabrouka bint Salem Shushana, aged around sixty, has been missing since the culmination of Saturday’s pilgrimage to Mount Arafat, her husband Mohammed told AFP on Wednesday. If she did not have an official permit for the hajj, she did not have access to air-conditioned facilities allowing pilgrims to cool off after hours of outdoor prayers, Mohammed said. “She’s an old lady. She was tired. She was so hot and she had no place to sleep,” he said. “I’ve looked for her in every hospital. So far I have no idea.” He’s far from the only one in desperate need of information. Facebook and other social networks were flooded with photos of the missing and requests for information. Among the searchers are the family and friends of Ghada Mahmoud Ahmed Dawood, an Egyptian pilgrim who has been missing since Saturday. “I received a call from her daughter in Egypt begging me to post on Facebook any message that might help find or find her,” said a Saudi-based family friend, who spoke under anonymous because he did not want to irritate the Saudi authorities. “The good news is that so far we have not found her on the dead list, which gives us hope that she is still alive.” – Scorching heat – The hajj is one of the five pillars of Islam and all Muslims who can afford it must perform it at least once. Its calendar is determined by the Islamic lunar calendar, which advances each year in the Gregorian calendar. In recent years, the mostly open-air rituals have been abandoned during the sweltering Saudi summer. Temperatures in the region are increasing by 0.4 degrees Celsius (0.72 degrees Fahrenheit) every decade, according to a Saudi study released last month. The figure of 550 deaths has been put forward. The diplomats came on Tuesday from the morgue of the hospital in the Al-Muaisem district of Mecca, one of the largest in the city. Among them, 323 Egyptians and 60 Jordanians, said Arab diplomats who informed AFP of the figures, one of whom stressed that almost all Egyptians died “because of the heat”. Deaths were also confirmed in Indonesia, Iran, Senegal, Tunisia and the autonomous region of Iraqi Kurdistan, although in many cases authorities did not specify the cause. On Wednesday, an Asian diplomat told AFP there were “around 68 dead” from India and others were missing. “Some (died) of natural causes and we had many elderly pilgrims. And some are due to weather conditions, that’s what we assume,” he said. Saudi Arabia has not provided information on deaths, although it reported more than 2,700 cases of “heat exhaustion” on Sunday alone. Last year, more than 200 pilgrims were reported dead, most of them from Indonesia. – ‘No news’ – Every year, tens of thousands of pilgrims attempt to perform the hajj by means irregular because they cannot afford official permits, which are often expensive. This has become easier since 2019, when Saudi Arabia introduced “Before, the only people who could do this were residents of the kingdom, and they know the situation,” he said. these guys who have tourist visas, it’s like being on the migrant route without any idea of ​​what awaits them. “Even pilgrims who have official permits can be vulnerable, including Houria Ahmad Abdallah Sharif, a 70-year-old Egyptian pilgrim missing since Saturday. After praying on Mount Arafat, she told a friend she wanted to go to the public toilet to clean her abaya, but she never returned. “We have searched from door to door for her and have not found her until now,” said the friend, who also spoke. on condition of anonymity. “We know many who are still looking for their family members and loved ones and don’t find them, or if they find them, they find them dead,” the friend added .bur/. th/dv