King dismisses officials in wake of hajj stampede

Saudi Arabia’s King Salman has dismissed three senior officials following a stampede that killed 769 pilgrims during the annual Muslim hajj pilgrimage and ordered a “revision” of the organisation of the annual event.

Hajj minister Bandar al-Hajjar, Mecca mayor Osama bin Fadhel al-Bar and the city’s police chief have been summarily fired from their posts. This summary action signifies that the Saudis have accepted some blame for the disaster. They had initially accused undisciplined pilgrims of failing to follow instructions. Surviving pilgrims insisted only one route had been open to the site of the tragedy; two others had been closed so dignitaries could proceed to a reception at the king’s palace.

Drastic measures must be taken to avoid mass stampedes in future. However, over the past three decades, the hajj has become big business – after oil, the hajj and the umra (visitation of Mecca outside the pilgrimage season) constitute the kingdom's second main earner, garnering €16-18 billion a year.

Professor of crowd science at Manchester Metropolitan University Keith Still said, “Every system has a finite limit . . . When you get above that number, the risks [of crush] increase exponentially.” Of the hajj, he stated, “it looks like the system has gone beyond its safe capacity”.

Safe levels

Instead of keeping the number of hajjis at a “safe” level, the Saudis initially boosted the numbers from 1.2 million in 1974 to 2.9 million in 2011 and 3.1 million in 2012. Apparently realising that three million was too risky a figure, in 2013 the number of hajj visas was cut by a third, allocating 700,000 to residents of the kingdom and 1.3 million to foreigners. The Saudis managed this reduction by limiting residents of the kingdom to a hajj every five years and setting smaller quotas for foreign lands.

Since 1988, the Saudis began investing tens of billions of dollars in “improvements. involving new road networks with overpasses and underpasses, tunnels, fenced tented compounds, and the “jamarat” bridge erected to permit pilgrims to throw pebbles at three stone pillars representing the devil. Cement structures and, this year, chain-link fences have, however, proven to be deadly obstacles to mass movement.

History of crushes

The first major hajj crush took place in 1990 when 1,426 pilgrims died after becoming trapped in a tunnel leading from Mecca to the Mina encampment. In 1994, 270 died at the stoning ritual and, in 1998, 118 were trampled to death at an incident on the bridge erected to facilitate performance of this rite. The tolls for the bridge were 35 in 2001, 14 in 2003, 251 in 2004, and 346 in 2006. Following the 2006 event, the bridge was demolished and the latest facility created, a multistorey bridge providing ramp access to tens of thousands an hour.

The king, dubbed “Custodian of the Two Holy Cities”, Mecca and Medina, may have acted against senior officials – a Nigerian official present at the tragedy was quoted as confirming a military vehicle had blocked the route to the stoning bridge, halting the first wave of pilgrims who were crushed by a second wave of 5,000 or so who were not prevented from advancing.

His testimony appears to confirm the accusation that traffic had been stopped to make way for passage of dignitaries or royals who would have been given precedence, perhaps without communicating this decision to policemen who could have prevented the debacle.