Crowding near Mecca, “the bloodiest Hajj” in the last quarter of a century – RIA Novosti

© AP Photo

CAIRO, September 24 – RIA Novosti, Margarita Kislov. The tragedy in the valley of Mina near Mecca in Saudi Arabia, where on Thursday as a result of a stampede killed more than 700 and injured nearly 900 pilgrims, Saudi media have called “the bloodiest Hajj in the past 25 years.” The final death toll is still unknown, rescuers continue to work, and hospitals report that can not cope with the flow of the victims, and asked the authorities to evacuate the people who have assisted in other hospitals of the kingdom to free hospital beds for new arrivals .

The fateful crossroads

The crush occurred at 9:00 am local time (9:00 MSK), when two huge flow of pilgrims faced a small square, formed by the merger of two streets leading from tent camps to the place fulfillment of one of the most important rites of the hajj – the stoning of the devil. Match the streets, pilgrims pressed forward on those who was trapped in the fatal crossroads, people fell, fainted from suffocation and found themselves overwhelmed by the neighbors.

“It was a horrible sight underfoot were corpses crushed, they dropped those who pushed from behind, started to panic, “- say in social networks eyewitnesses of the tragedy in the valley of Mina.

to blame a lack of discipline

Crush in Saudi Arabia is likely to have been due to non-compliance shifts graphs of the stoning ritual, established in advance by the authorities of the kingdom for pilgrims from different countries. First, this version sounded themselves witnesses of the tragedy, and then it was confirmed by officials.

© AP Photo

Saudi authorities previously distributed to all the pilgrims schedule, according to which group believers in turn had to be suitable for the rite. “The tragedy happened because of the fact that African pilgrims did not follow the schedule and in time moved to the rite, when the place has accumulated thousands of Muslims” – eyewitnesses.

“Incident could have been avoided if the pilgrims follow the instructions,” – said, in turn, the Minister of Health of the Kingdom of Saudi Khaled al-Faleh. According to him, the authorities annually increase security measures to avoid any incident related to crowding, but the human factor often plays a decisive fateful role.

investigation

In Riyadh announced the creation of a government commission to investigate the circumstances of the tragedy in the valley of Mina, and promised that the investigation would be swift and extremely open. Meanwhile, the country whose citizens are taking part in the Hajj, hastily created their own crisis headquarters and trying to figure out whether nationals among those who got to hustle.

It is already known that killed at least 43 Iranians, We suffered at least ten citizens of Egypt. Russians in the region where the tragedy occurred, was not. United Arab Emirates and Lebanon also claim that their compatriots, according to preliminary information, were not affected.