Pilgrim deaths in Mecca highlight the underworld Hajj industry

More than 1,300 people died during the Muslim Hajj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia this month, the majority of whom the Saudi government said did not have permits. Many people have had to walk miles in the scorching heat after paying thousands of dollars to illegal or fraudulent tour operators.

While licensed pilgrims are transported around Mecca in air-conditioned buses and rest in air-conditioned tents, those who are not registered are often exposed to the elements. In recent days, as temperatures exceeded 120 degrees, some pilgrims described seeing people fainting and passing by bodies in the streets.

On Sunday, in an interview on state television, Saudi Arabia’s Health Minister, Fahd al-Jalajel, said that 83% of the 1,301 reported deaths involved pilgrims who were not pregnant. have a license.

“The increase in temperature during the hajj season is a big challenge this year,” he said. “Unfortunately – and this is painful for all of us – those without hajj permits had to walk very far under the sun.”

Mr. al-Jalajel’s comments came after days of silence from the Saudi government on deaths during the hajj, an arduous and deeply spiritual ritual that Muslims are encouraged to do it once in their lifetime if they can afford it physically and financially.

With nearly two million participants each year, it is not unusual for pilgrims to die from heat, illness or chronic illness. It is unclear whether this year’s death toll is higher than usual, because Saudi Arabia does not regularly report such statistics. Last year, 774 pilgrims died comes from Indonesia alone, and in 1985, more than 1,700 people died around holy sites, mostly from heat stress, a learn found at that time.

But because so many of those killed did not have permits, this year’s death toll has exposed the truth about tour operators and smugglers around the world who profit from Muslims who are longing to make the journey.

The deaths also highlight the widespread failure of Saudi immigration and security procedures to prevent unregistered pilgrims from reaching holy sites, including a security fence around Mecca closed weeks before the Hajj.

Despite those efforts, an estimated 400,000 undocumented people tried to make the pilgrimage this year, a senior Saudi official said. speak Agence France-Presse, spoke on condition of anonymity. The Hajj has also been the site of many disasters over the years, including a 2015 stampede that left people dead. more than 2,200 people.

Saudi officials did not respond to requests for comment.

However, in interviews with The New York Times, hajj tour operators, pilgrims and relatives of the dead described easily exploitable vulnerabilities that allowed people to reach the kingdom on a tourist visa or pre-hajj tourist visa, often supported by their home tour operators. Nation. When they arrived, they said, they found a network of illegal brokers and smugglers providing their services and sometimes abandoning them to fend for themselves.

The number of unregistered pilgrims appears to have increased this year as the economic downturn intensifies in countries such as Egypt and Jordan. An official hajj package can cost more than $5,000 or $10,000, depending on the pilgrim’s country of origin — beyond the means of many people hoping to make the trip.

Marwa, a 32-year-old Egyptian woman whose parents performed the hajj without an official permit this year, said they paid about $2,000 for their journey, which was facilitated by an agent in Egypt and a broker in Saudi Arabia. They felt that they had to leave early because of the Egyptian currency lose value, their savings decrease each year, she said. Marwa asked to be identified only by his first name to avoid legal consequences.

Some countries where large numbers of pilgrims died acted quickly to contain the fallout.

On Friday, the president of Tunisia, where more than 50 pilgrims were among the dead, fired the country’s religious affairs minister. In Jordan, where at least 99 pilgrims died, prosecutors opened an investigation into illegal hajj routes. And in Egypt, authorities said they would revoke the licenses of 16 companies that issued visas to pilgrims without providing adequate services.

“There is so much greed surrounding this business,” said Iman Ahmed, co-owner of El-Iman Tours in Cairo.

Ms Ahmed says she refuses to send unregistered pilgrims on hajj packages but other Egyptian tour operators and Saudi Arabian brokers have made large sums of money doing so .

One unregistered pilgrim who died was Safaa al-Tawab, a grandmother from the Egyptian city of Luxor, according to her brother Ahmed al-Tawab. Mr. al-Tawab, 55, was unable to get a hajj permit but found an Egyptian travel agency to take her for about $3,000, he said.

Her brother said Ms. al-Tawab did not realize that she had broken the rules by traveling to Saudi Arabia and that after arriving, she told relatives that she had been placed in an illegal residence. fully furnished and prohibited from going out. While the tour operator had promised air-conditioned buses to shuttle pilgrims around Mecca, Mr. al-Tawab said, she instead found herself having to walk miles under the heat.

Before the hajj, Saudi authorities posted billboards and sent out mass text messages reminding people that performing the pilgrimage without a permit is illegal; Violators face fines, deportation and a ban on re-entering the kingdom.

Entry to Mecca is prohibited weeks before the hajj for unlicensed visitors. However, many pilgrims were able to evade the restrictions, arriving in Mecca early and hiding out, or paying smugglers to bring them into the city.

A Jordanian pilgrim, who asked to remain anonymous as Um Abdulrahman, a pseudonym for fear of retaliation, said she met several smugglers to help her move around Mecca, including one who charged a fee. about $200 to transport her into the city over a rock. Mountain road. But she ended up walking for hours in the sun without access to water or a bathroom, she said.

She said at one point, the police briefly detained her group, wrote down their names and left them in a deserted place. Um Abdulrahman, 49, said she knew her journey was illegal but she didn’t fully understand the risks.

Even for the young and healthy, the hajj is a physically challenging event and many pilgrims are old or infirm when they are able to make the journey. Some people believe that the hajj can be their last rites and that dying in Mecca will bring great blessings.

The Saudi government implemented measures to minimize the impact of extreme heat, including misting pilgrims with water. One recently learn estimates that heatstroke rates at the hajj have actually decreased – although researchers warn that could change as worsening temperatures caused by climate change outpace measures to mitigate it.

Abdulhalim Dahir, 31, a Kenyan pilgrim who performed the hajj with his brother and father using official permits, said his journey was smooth, with air-conditioned tents, air-conditioned buses and roads. water easily.

“It was an amazing experience – once in a lifetime,” he said.

But even some in Mecca legitimately complain about not having enough heating facilities.

Makhdoom Ali, 36, a Pakistani computer engineer who went there with his 65-year-old mother, said he saw several pilgrims collapse from heat exhaustion without immediate help.

“Many lives could have been saved if the government had made better arrangements,” Mr. Ali said.

Mr. al-Jalajel, the Health Minister, said a quarter of the medical services provided during the Hajj were provided to undocumented pilgrims. “We consider them as pilgrims, regardless of their license, race or nationality,” he said.

Among the dead were at least two Americans.

Maryland residents Isatu Wurie, 65, and Alieu Wurie, 71, saved for years to make the pilgrimage, paying $23,000 to a local tour operator, said their daughter, Saida Wurie. know.

But after they arrived in Mecca, the operator told them to stay at the hotel until they got a permit, they told their daughter. Her parents were disappointed, Ms. Wurie said, because they believed they were going “by the book.”

They were still able to perform some of the original rituals of the hajj and they were “very excited to see the Kaaba,” she said — the cubic structure that Muslims believe was the first house of worship.

The last text she received from her mother said that the bus to take them to one of their destinations had not yet arrived and instead they had been walking for two hours.

Despite the disappointment with the tour operator and the difficulty in finding their bodies – which were buried in Mecca – Ms Wurie believes her parents were filled with joy in their final days.

“They died doing exactly what they wanted to do,” she said. “They always want to go on hajj.”

Hager ElHakeem, Rana F. Sweis, Zia ur-Rehman, Saif Hasnat, Mujib Mashal, Safak Timur, Aida Alami And Muktita Suhartono Report contributions.