Riyadh:
After years of being unable to obtain a hajj visa, Yasser finally concluded he had no choice but to perform the sacred pilgrimage illegally, a decision he now regrets.
Although he survived the grueling annual rites that took place again in extreme heat this year, he has not seen his wife since Sunday and fears she is among more than 1,000 reported deaths – mostly of unregistered Egyptians like himself.
“I have looked in all the hospitals in Mecca. She is not there,” the 60-year-old retired engineer told AFP on Friday by phone from his hotel room, where he is reluctant to pack his wife’s suitcase in the hope that she comes back. to do it alone.
“I don’t want to believe in the possibility of her being dead. Because if she is dead, it will be the end of her life and also the end of my life.”
Egypt is responsible for more than half of this year’s hajj deaths – 658 out of more than 1,000 reported as of Friday by about 10 countries ranging from Senegal to Indonesia, according to an AFP tally.
An Arab diplomat told AFP that 630 of the 658 dead Egyptians were not registered, meaning they could not count on access to amenities designed to make the pilgrimage more bearable.
This included air-conditioned tents intended to offer some relief as temperatures rose to 51.8 degrees Celsius (125 Fahrenheit) in Mecca’s Grand Mosque, Islam’s holiest site.
Saudi authorities did not respond to requests for comment on the deaths.
The Ministry of Health reported more than 2,700 cases of “heat exhaustion” on Sunday alone, but has not updated the number since.
Non-accounting fees
The hajj, one of the five pillars of Islam, must be performed by all Muslims with the means at least once.
However, official licenses are allocated to countries through a quota system and distributed to individuals through a lottery.
Even for those who can obtain them, the high costs make the irregular route – which costs thousands of dollars less – more attractive.
This is especially true since 2019, when Saudi Arabia began issuing general tourist visas, making it easier to travel to the Gulf kingdom.
But for Yasser, who did not want to be identified by his full name because he is still in Saudi Arabia, the complications arising from the deregistration became clear as soon as he arrived in the country in May.
Long before the formal hajj rites began a week ago, some shops and restaurants refused service to visitors who could not present permits on the official hajj app, known as Nusuk.
Once the long days of walking and praying under the scorching sun began, he was unable to access official hajj buses – the only means of transport to get around the holy sites – without paying exorbitant, unofficial fees.
When the heat drove him to exhaustion, he sought urgent care at a hospital in Mina but was turned away, he said, again for lack of authorization.
As his conditions worsened, Yasser and his wife Safaa became lost in the crowd during the “stoning of the devil” ritual in Mina.
Since then, Yasser has repeatedly postponed his flight home, hoping she would show up.
“I’ll keep putting it off until I find it,” he said.
‘All of Egypt is sad’
Other unregistered Egyptian pilgrims interviewed by AFP this week described similar difficulties – and equally alarming sights along the Hajj route as the heat increased.
“There were dead bodies on the ground” in Arafat, Mina and on the way to Mecca, said Mohammed, 31, an Egyptian living in Saudi Arabia who performed hajj this year with his 56-year-old mother.
“I saw people suddenly faint and die from exhaustion.”
Another Egyptian, whose mother died on the pilgrimage route, and who did not want to be identified even by her first name because she lives in Riyadh, said it was impossible to get an ambulance for her mother.
An emergency vehicle only materialized after her mother’s death, taking her body to an unknown location.
“Even now, my cousins in Mecca are still looking for my mother’s body,” she said.
“Don’t we have the right to finally see her before she is buried?”
Even some registered pilgrims had difficulty accessing emergency services, pointing to a system that was overwhelmed, said Mustafa, whose elderly parents – who were permitted to go on the hajj – died after being separated from younger family members.
“We knew they were tired,” Mustafa told AFP by phone from Egypt. “They were walking long distances and couldn’t find water, and it was very hot.”
He was eager to welcome them home when they returned, but now his only solace comes from the fact that they were buried in the holy city of Mecca.
“Of course we believe what God wrote to them… but all of Egypt is sad,” he said.
“We’ll never see them again.”
(Except the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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