Saudi Arabia on Friday suggested pilgrims ignoring crowd control rules bore some blame for a crush that killed over 700 people at the haj pilgrimage in the annual event’s worst disaster for 25 years.
The kingdom’s regional rival Iran expressed outrage at the deaths of 131 of its nationals at the world’s largest annual gathering of people, and politicians in Tehran suggested Riyadh was incapable of managing the event.
Hundreds of demonstrators protested in the Iranian capital, chanting “Death to the Saudi dynasty”. With pilgrims frantically searching for missing compatriots and photographs of piles of the dead circulating on social media, the tragedy haunted many on the haj a day on.
“There were layers of bodies, maybe three layers,” said one witness who asked not to be named. “Some people were alive under the pile of bodies and were trying to climb up but in vain, because their strength failed and they dropped dead.
“I felt helpless not to be able to save people. I saw them dying in front of my eyes,” he said. An Algerian pilgrim told Algeria’s al-Shurouk television: “We saw death: People were stepping over the mutilated bodies in front of you, four or five on top of each other.”
Saudi King Salman ordered a review of haj plans, and Health Minister Khalid al-Falih said an investigation would be conducted rapidly and a final toll of dead and wounded calculated.
At least 863 pilgrims were injured in the disaster, in which two big groups of pilgrims collided at a crossroads in Mina, a few km (miles) east of Mecca, on their way to performing the “Stoning of the Devil” ritual at Jamarat.
The stampede “was perhaps because some pilgrims moved without following instructions by the relevant authorities,” the minister said in a statement. The kingdom’s critics were likely to see the statement as an attempt to deflect responsibility. Safety during the haj is highly sensitive for the ruling Al Saud dynasty, which presents itself internationally as the guardian of orthodox Islam and custodian of its holiest places in Mecca and Medina.
The effort to uncover the facts and assign blame was likely to grow more acute and possibly more political.
Former Iraqi Prime minister Nuri al-Maliki, an ally of Iran and foe of Riyadh, said the incident was “proof of the incompetence of the organisers”. He said the haj should be placed under the authority of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, the world’s largest Muslim organization.
