Hajj Stampede: Iran almost Doubles its Death Toll

“The Americans are behind the Mina disaster”, he said.

“The families of the missing people are in distress”, Mehbooba Mufti, the leader of India’s Hajj delegation, told local media.

“Iran would be the first country to receive bodies and repatriate them”, Hashemi said.

In addition, 61 Bangladeshis are said to be attending treatments in different hospitals in Jeddah and Makkah, a foreign ministry press release said today.

Asked by reporters on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, Saudi Foreign Minister Adel bin Ahmed Al-Jubeir said that the Iranians “should not politically exploit a tragedy”, SPA reported Sunday.

Rather, we urge Saudi Arabia to accept responsibility and show complete transparency and to take due measures to prevent such incidents in future, ‘ he added.

It would be recalled on September 24 that no fewer than 747 Muslims, including 64 Nigerians, lost their lives and 805 others injured at a stampede on their way to Jamarat complex, stone-throwing site.

Jazayeri said it’s the duty of Muslim states to undertake fact-finding missions “to decode these crimes by Al-Saud”.

He did not clarify what kind of action Iranian forces might take.

On the other hand, the government said that Saudi Arabia has started issuing information on finger prints of the stampede victims.

In the statement, Hajj and Pilgrimage Organization offers condolences to all Iranians for the loss of 464 pilgrims, while 20 are still hospitalized.

This attribution of a man-made tragedy to fate is unfortunate.

“In the last week there have been many anti-Saudi demonstrations in many cities in Iran”, she says, “Many have called for the Saudi embassy to be shut down”.

The statement by Iran’s hajj organisation comes hours after Saudi state news announced that the two countries had reached a deal to repatriate the dead after Tehran threatened a “fierce” response over delays.

Saudi Arabia puts the death toll at 769, making the disaster the worst to strike the annual pilgrimage in a quarter-century.

Shamkhani was responding to a question by Tasnim about “reports of the kidnapping of Roknabadi and a few Iranian commanders” during the hajj incident.

Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, Ali Shamkhani, said claims of Roknadabi’s kidnapping were simply “unreal”.

The incident has been described as the deadliest to have occurred in the 25-year history of Hajj.