Foreign officials question Saudi Arabia’s hajj death toll

Iran and Saudi Arabia have been locked in a war of words over last week’s stampede, with Riyadh accusing Tehran of politicizing the tragedy and Iran demanding an apology from Saudi Arabia, which it says mismanaged the Hajj.

Saudi and Iranian media said the message of sympathy was delivered at a meeting between the two countries’ health ministers in the Saudi Red Sea port city of Jeddah.

It said the Saudi minister “stressed the kingdom’s government’s wish to cooperate with the Islamic Republic of Iran”.

Separately, Iran on Thursday almost doubled its death toll from the Hajj stampede to 464, giving up hope of finding missing pilgrims alive after a tragedy that has sparked a major row with Saudi Arabia.

“We would appreciate if the government of Saudi Arabia would release information about the missing Hajis so that we can pass this to their relatives”, she said in a press conference held at the Indian Consulate General here on Wednesday.

The Iranian state news agency IRNA published a list Thursday night of the 465 pilgrims it said died at Mina.

Sunni-dominated Saudi Arabia and its allies have repeatedly accused their Shiite rival Iran of arming the Huthi rebels who have seized swathes of Yemen, including the capital.

A coalition statement said 14 Iranian sailors were detained on the boat, which was carrying 18 anti-armoured Concourse shells, 54 anti-tank shells, shell-battery kits, firing guidance systems, launchers and batteries for binoculars.

Iran’s Supreme Leader on Wednesday kept up the verbal broadsides against Saudi Arabia, threatening it with “tough and harsh” retaliation because Iranian stampede victims weren’t being repatriated swiftly enough.

There is also anger and anxiety elsewhere in the Muslim world.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, in an address to United Nations, demanded that an investigation be started into the Hajj accident.

But even before the hajj began, disaster struck Mecca as a tower construction crane crashed into the Grand Mosque on September 11, killing at least 111 people. Gen. Mansour al-Turki told the AP on Tuesday that the photos are of those who died during the entire pilgrimage from a variety of causes and not just at the disaster in Mina. Chaudhry, the Pakistani lawmaker, put his country’s death toll at 40 while dozens remain missing.

More than 600 are reported as missing.

The coalition, which also includes Bahrain, Qatar, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, has been battling the Iranian-backed Houthis for more than six months.