The deaths of greater than a thousand pilgrims in Saudi Arabia for the hajj have put a highlight on an underworld of illicit tour operators, smugglers and swindlers who revenue off Muslims determined to fulfill their spiritual obligation to journey to Mecca.
Whereas registered pilgrims are transported across the shrines in air-conditioned buses and relaxation in air-conditioned tents, undocumented ones are sometimes uncovered to the weather, making them extra susceptible to excessive warmth. Some pilgrims this yr described watching folks faint and passing our bodies on the street as temperatures hit 120 levels or greater.
On Sunday, in an interview on state tv, the Saudi well being minister, Fahd al-Jalajel, stated that 83 % of the greater than 1,300 deaths occurred amongst pilgrims who had not had official permits.
“The rise in temperatures through the hajj season represented a giant problem this yr,” he stated. “Sadly — and that is painful for all of us — those that didn’t have hajj permits walked lengthy distances below the solar.”
Mr. al-Jalajel’s remarks got here after days of silence from the Saudi authorities over the fatalities, through the hajj, an arduous and deeply religious ritual that succesful Muslims are inspired to carry out of their lifetimes.
With almost two million pilgrims taking part annually, lots of them aged or ailing, it’s not uncommon for folks to die from warmth stress, sickness or continual illness, and Saudi Arabia doesn’t repeatedly report these statistics. So it’s unclear if the variety of deaths this yr was uncommon. Final yr, 774 pilgrims died from Indonesia alone, and in 1985, greater than 1,700 folks died across the holy websites, most of them from warmth stress, a research on the time discovered.
However as a result of so most of the pilgrims who died this yr had been performing the pilgrimage with out official documentation, their deaths uncovered the underworld of unlicensed tour operators, smugglers and swindlers who benefit from pilgrims determined to carry out the hajj, serving to them evade the rules.
“There’s a lot greed round this enterprise,” stated Iman Ahmed, co-owner of El-Iman Excursions in Cairo.
Ms. Ahmed stated that she refused to ship unregistered pilgrims on hajj packages however that different Egyptian tour operators and Saudi brokers made massive cash doing so.
Greater than 1.8 million pilgrims registered formally for the hajj this yr. However about 400,000 extra tried to make the journey with out the required paperwork, a senior Saudi official informed the information company Agence France-Presse, talking on the situation of anonymity. That might imply that just about one in 5 of this yr’s pilgrims bypassed the dominion’s restrictions, together with a safety cordon round Mecca that locks down weeks forward of hajj.
A number of international locations that recorded massive numbers of pilgrim deaths have moved shortly to handle the fallout over the previous few days.
In Egypt, the authorities stated that they might revoke the licenses of 16 corporations that issued “unofficial” visas to hopeful pilgrims with out offering them with ample providers.
In Tunisia, which counted greater than 50 folks among the many useless, the president on Friday fired the nation’s spiritual affairs minister.
And in Jordan, which recorded the deaths of at the very least 99 pilgrims, the general public prosecutor opened an investigation into unlawful hajj routes and the folks cashing in on them.
In interviews with The New York Instances, hajj tour operators, pilgrims and kin of the useless stated the variety of undocumented pilgrims appeared to have been pushed up by rising financial desperation in international locations like Egypt and Jordan. An official hajj package deal can price greater than $5,000 or $10,000, relying on a pilgrim’s nation of origin — far past the technique of many hoping to make the journey.
However additionally they described simply exploited loopholes in Saudi Arabia’s rules that allowed undocumented pilgrims to journey to the dominion with a vacationer or customer visa a number of weeks forward of hajj. As soon as they arrive, they discover a community of unlawful brokers and smugglers who provide their providers, take their cash and generally abandon them to fend for themselves, they stated.
Saudi officers didn’t reply to a request for remark.
Amongst those that fell into that lure was Safaa al-Tawab, from the Egyptian metropolis of Luxor.
Ms. al-Tawab, 55, had not been in a position to acquire a hajj allow however discovered an Egyptian tour firm that supplied to take her for round $3,000, stated her brother, Ahmed al-Tawab.
He stated she had not understood that she was violating the foundations when she traveled to Saudi Arabia final month.
After she arrived, she informed kin that she had been put in insufficient housing and prevented from going exterior by the tour operator. Whereas the corporate had promised to offer air-conditioned buses to move the pilgrims round Mecca, she as a substitute discovered herself strolling for miles within the solar to succeed in the holy websites, Mr. al-Tawab stated.
His sister died halfway by the pilgrimage, however when he contacted the tour firm, it assured him that she was nice. When the corporate consultant discovered that her kin knew about her dying, he turned off his telephone, Mr. al-Tawab stated.
“Pilgrims had been deceived,” Mahmoud Qassem, a member of Egypt’s Parliament, stated in a request for data from authorities officers.
“They left all of them alone to face their very own future,” Mr. Qassem stated of the tour corporations.
Reporting was contributed by Hager ElHakeem, Rana F. Sweis, Zia ur-Rehman, Saif Hasnat, Mujib Mashal, Safak Timur, Aida Alami and Muktita Suhartono.
