At least 35 Muslim pilgrims were killed in a stampede at the Haj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia yesterday, a civil defence official said. The deaths happened as large crowds surged forward for a symbolic stoning of the devil.
The civil defence chief, Brig Gen Saad bin Abdullah alTuwaijer, said 23 women and 12 men of various nationalities were fatally crushed or suffocated in the stampede on Jamarat bridge near the holy city of Mecca. The bridge was the scene of at least two earlier deadly stampedes.
"At 8.12 a.m. this morning . . . most pilgrims who had arrived in Mena early flocked to Jamarat in huge numbers", said Gen Tuwaijer.
"As a result of pushing at the stoning point, several pilgrims, most of whom were elderly, fell to the ground, resulting in the death of 35 persons . . . as a result of suffocation and stampede", he said, without giving the nationality of the victims.
Another Saudi source said the death toll had risen to 38, but there was no official confirmation of this. The dead and dozens of injured were taken to Mena General hospital. Some of the injured were released after treatment.
A Turkish pilgrim said that pushing and shoving at the bridge was unbearable. "It was very crowded, and a lot of pushing and shoving was going on," said the middle-aged pilgrim, who identified himself as Fateeh.
"I knew something was wrong when I saw ambulances, but I had no idea that so many people were killed and hurt", he added.
Gen Tuwaijer said security men quickly brought the situation under control, ensuring the safety of hundreds of thousands of other pilgrims gathered at the bridge.
The nearly two million pilgrims from 160 countries on Haj had moved to the Jamarat bridge from Muzdalifah, where they had spent the night after a day of prayers on Mount Arafat.
The tragedy occurred as the world's one billion Muslims began celebrating Eid al-Adha, or "feast of sacrifice", which marks God's last-minute command to Abraham to slaughter a sheep after asking him to sacrifice his son to test Abraham's faith.
After the stoning, pilgrims had their hair cut or their heads shaved completely and returned to Mecca to circle the black stone Kaaba at the centre of the Grand Mosque seven times.
Pilgrims who completed the ritual devil-stoning went on to sacrifice sheep, camels or cows before moving on to Mecca.
The five-day ritual, marked by repeated fatal incidents in recent years, had been proceeding smoothly before the stampede.
The Jamarat bridge was the scene of a stampede in 1998 in which at least 119 people were killed, including some Saudi policemen. In 1994, 270 people were killed there in a stampede.
In 1997, 343 people died in a fire that swept through thousands of tents in Mena, another holy site near Mecca. Saudi Arabia has since spent millions of dollars on fireproof tents.
The biggest reported tragedy was in 1990 when 1,426 pilgrims were crushed to death in a stampede in a tunnel.
The pilgrims will return later to spend the next two nights in Mena and to repeat the devil-stoning ritual over the next two days before the five-day Haj season finishes.