Death toll from this year’s Hajj pilgrimage surpassed 1,000 on Thursday, with more than half of the deceased being unregistered worshippers who undertook the journey in extreme heat. The death count, which totalled 1,081 people included 658 Egyptians, out of whom 630 were unregistered, as reported by News18. Notably, the new addition to the deaths include 70 Indians and 58 Egyptians.
The National Meteorological Centre reported a high of 51.8 degrees Celsius at the Grand Mosque in Mecca earlier this week. A Saudi study published last month indicated that temperatures in the area are rising by 0.4 degrees Celsius per decade.
Each year, tens of thousands of pilgrims attempt to perform the Hajj through unofficial channels, unable to afford the costly official permits. Earlier this month, Saudi authorities reported clearing hundreds of thousands of unregistered pilgrims from Mecca, but many still participated in the main rites, which began last Friday.
Without official permits, these unregistered pilgrims were more vulnerable to the heat, as they could not access the air-conditioned spaces provided by Saudi authorities for the 1.8 million authorized pilgrims. The principal cause of death among Egyptian pilgrims was heat-related complications, such as high blood pressure and other issues, according to an Arab diplomat. Fatalities have also been confirmed in Malaysia, Pakistan, India, Jordan, Indonesia, Iran, Senegal, Tunisia, and Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan region, although the specific causes have not been detailed in many cases.
Friends and family members of missing pilgrims have been desperately searching for their loved ones, scouring hospitals and pleading for news online amidst the scorching temperatures. While Saudi Arabia has not provided detailed information on the fatalities, it reported over 2,700 cases of “heat exhaustion” on Sunday alone.