Yemeni pilgrims injured in Mecca hotel fire

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

A fire at a hotel in Saudi Arabia’s holy city of Mecca has forced some 1,500 people to leave the place as hundreds of thousands of Muslims are in the city to perform the Hajj pilgrimage.

One problem was that of pilgrims who made the Hajj but could not afford to travel home.

The pilgrims, in the first phase, will spend the night in the tent-city of Mina reciting the Holy Quran or praying. The mount houses Thor cave where Prophet Mohammed is believed to have hidden from his enemies before his migration to Medina.

While the news agency did not indicate the reasons for the deaths, it is believed that 107 of them were caused by last week’s crane collapse inside Mecca’s Grand Mosque.

Pilgrims attend prayers outside the Grand mosque.

In a statement on Wednesday, Health Minister Khalid Al-Falih reassured citizens, residents and pilgrims that the health situation of pilgrims is good, and no epidemic or pandemic cases have been detected among them so far.

Army troops and members of the national guard will join security personnel to oversee the annual Hajj pilgrimage, as a force of 100,000 is deployed to marshal the massive crowds. “We’ve been targeted by terrorism for years now and we know that we are a target for terrorist groups”.

The government therefore, takes precautions and prepare for all sorts of emergencies as well.

The six Nigerians that were killed in the September 11 crane accident at the precinct of Ka’aba in Mecca have been buried, the Nigerian Consul-General to Saudi Arabia, Ambassador Ahmed Umar, said yesterday in Jeddah. Muslims worldwide celebrate by slaughtering goats, camels, sheep or cows to commemorate the willingness of Prophet Abraham to sacrifice his son Ismael as an act of obedience to God.