A somber toll has been reported from this year’s Hajj pilgrimage, with at least 68 Indian nationals among the over 600 fatalities. Sources familiar with the matter revealed the grim news on Wednesday, citing the extreme heat and high temperatures as a significant contributing factor.
“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,” shared a diplomat with AFP, requesting anonymity. Despite the severity of the situation, the Indian government has not yet issued any official statement regarding the death toll.
This news comes after two Arab diplomats informed AFP on Tuesday that 550 fatalities had been recorded during the hajj. Among those, 323 were Egyptians and 60 Jordanians, with one diplomat highlighting that nearly all the Egyptian deaths were attributed to the intense heat.
Further reports of deaths have surfaced from Indonesia, Iran, Senegal, Tunisia, and Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan region. However, in many cases, the exact causes of death have not been disclosed by the authorities. Last year, the majority of the 200 pilgrims who died were from Indonesia.
While Saudi Arabia has not officially released the number of fatalities, they did report over 2,700 cases of “heat exhaustion” on Sunday alone. “This happens every year… We can’t say that it is abnormally high this year. It’s somewhat similar to last year but we will know more in the coming days,” stated the diplomat who confirmed the Indian fatalities. They also acknowledged that some Indian pilgrims were missing but declined to provide a specific number.
In recent years, the hajj has coincided with the intensely hot Saudi summer. A Saudi study published last month indicated that temperatures in the region where the rituals are conducted have been steadily increasing, rising by 0.4 degrees Celsius (0.72 degrees Fahrenheit) every decade.
