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Despite their promise of cooperation in certain areas, Saudi Arabia’s measures for pursuing the fate of missing Iranian pilgrims are not enough, the Iranian official said, referring to near 300 Iranian nationals who are still unaccounted for.

An official repatriation ceremony is slated to be held on Saturday morning at Tehran’s Mehrabad Airport with Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani and a number of high-ranking officials attending the service.

Iran berated Saudi Arabia on Sunday over the deaths of 769 people at the haj pilgrimage, demanding an apology and accusing its rival of seeking to evade blame, while Riyadh in turn accused Tehran of playing politics with the disaster. As for the things that humans can not...

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.

He directed the officials of prime minister’s office to telephone all the relatives of 63 missing pilgrims and acquaint them with the latest information.

He said Saudi authorities blocked a road used by hajj pilgrims to allow a royal convoy to pass through, causing the deadly convergence in Mina, a town on the outskirts of Mecca.

The death toll of Indian pilgrims in last week’s horrific stampede during Haj on Sunday rose to 35 as authorities identified six more bodies.

Prayers and protests have been staged amid mounting fury over the deaths of more than 700 worshippers during a stampede at the annual hajj pilgrimage.

“It is built mostly along sectarian and ideological lines – Saudi Arabia as the leader of the Sunni Muslim world, and Iran as the leader of the Shia Muslim world”, Martin Reardon, a senior vice president with The Soufan Group, wrote on Aljazeera.com in March....

Maj. Gen. Mansour al-Turki said that the fatigue of pilgrims, and high temperatures – soaring above 43 degrees Celsius, or 110 degrees Fahrenheit – might have also played a role in the stampede, according to the AP.

The victims were crushed to death and more than 850 other injured when two groups of pilgrims arrived at crossroads on Street 204 at the tent city of Mina.

The Saudi health minister Khalid Aal-Falih, said in a statement that the stampede may have been caused by “some pilgrims who did not follow the guidelines and instructions issued by the responsible authorities”.

DFAT advised people who were concerned for the welfare of family and friends in Mecca to first try to contact their loved ones directly. “You go forward and suddenly you go back”.

A report on the incident will be submitted to him this Friday, 18 September, according to the Saudi Press Agency (SPA).

The hotel’s guests are among close to two million Muslims from around the world expected for the Hajj, which begins officially on Tuesday.