68 Indians died during haj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia amid searing heat: diplomat
- Saudi Arabia has not provided information on fatalities, though it reported more than 2,700 cases of ‘heat exhaustion’ on Sunday alone
A diplomat in Saudi Arabia said on Wednesday that 68 Indian nationals died during the haj pilgrimage this year, marked by searing heat, bringing the overall tally to more than 600.
“We have confirmed around 68 dead … Some are because of natural causes, and we had many old-age pilgrims. And some are due to the weather conditions, that’s what we assume,” said the diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The new toll comes after two Arab diplomats said on Tuesday that 550 deaths had been recorded during the haj, one of the five pillars of Islam that all Muslims with the means must perform at least once.
That figure included 323 Egyptians and 60 Jordanians, the Arab diplomats said, and one specified that nearly all the Egyptians died “because of heat”.
Fatalities have also been confirmed by Indonesia, Iran, Senegal, Tunisia and Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan region, though in many cases authorities have not specified the cause.
The total reported dead so far is 645, according to an Agence France-Presse tally.
