Hajj stampede ‘beyond human control’, says Saudi Arabia’s top cleric

Nations around the globe started providing details regarding losses and their missing, including Pakistan, which said no less than 236 of its explorers were unaccounted for on Friday. Pakistani officials earlier said that seven Pakistani pilgrims were killed and six injured in the crush Thursday near the holy city of Mecca. Moreover, it came only after 13 days passed subsequent to a crane collapse that killed more than 100 people at the Grand Mosque in Mecca.

The paper, citing unnamed witnesses, said waves of Iranian pilgrims had ignored rules related to the stone-throwing ritual by moving in an opposite direction.

Nigeria has dismissed remarks by the Saudi health minister blaming pilgrims for “not following instructions”.

For years, the Hajj was marred by stampedes and fires, but it had been largely incident-free for nine years after safety improvements and billions of dollars worth of infrastructure investment.

Thursday’s disaster, in which more than 800 people were injured, was the second surrounding the Hajj this month, despite the kingdom spending billions of dollars on expanding and securing its religious sites.

The stampede occurred during the symbolic stoning of the devil at Mina, outside the holy city of Mecca.

Iran expressed outrage at the deaths of 131 of its nationals.

Iran, which is Saudi Arabia‘s regional rival, said yesterday that 136 of its citizens were among the dead, with another 344 still missing.

The hajj is one of the five pillars of Islam, which each of the world’s more than 1.5 billion Muslims is expected to perform at least once in his or her lifetime, as long as they are capable.

State TV said Saudi Arabia has yet to issue visas for an Iranian delegation to visit the kingdom to oversee the treatment of injured Iranians and the repatriation of remains. Speaking on state television in Iran, he repeated an unconfirmed story contending that local authorities caused the fatal crowding by diverting pilgrims away from a road that was being used by a convoy of the Saudi royal family.