Over 1,300 people died during this year’s Hajj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia, the highest number ever recorded. The tragedy was primarily attributed to the extreme heat experienced by pilgrims at Islamic holy sites in the desert kingdom. Saudi authorities announced Sunday that 83% of the 1,301 fatalities were unauthorized pilgrims who walked long distances in soaring temperatures to perform the Hajj rituals in and around the holy city of Mecca.
Saudi Health Minister Fahd bin Abdurrahman Al-Jalajel, speaking with the state-owned Al Ekhbariya TV, said 95 pilgrims were being treated in hospitals, some of whom were airlifted for treatment in the capital, Riyadh. The identification process was delayed because many of the dead pilgrims lacked identification documents. He stated that the deceased were buried in Mecca, without providing a breakdown.
The fatalities included over 660 Egyptians, with all but 31 of them being unauthorized pilgrims, according to two officials in Cairo. Egypt revoked the licenses of 16 travel agencies that facilitated unauthorized travel to Saudi Arabia. The officials, who spoke anonymously, said most of the deaths were reported at the Emergency Complex in Mecca’s Al-Muaisem neighborhood. Egypt had sent over 50,000 authorized pilgrims to Saudi Arabia this year.
Saudi authorities had cracked down on unauthorized pilgrims, expelling tens of thousands of people. However, many, primarily Egyptians, managed to reach holy sites in and around Mecca, some on foot. Unlike authorized pilgrims, they lacked hotel accommodations to escape the scorching heat. In a statement Saturday, Egypt’s government said the 16 travel agencies failed to provide adequate services for pilgrims, illegally facilitating travel to Saudi Arabia using visas unsuitable for pilgrimage. The government also referred officials from these companies to the public prosecutor for investigation.
According to the state-owned Al-Ahram daily, some travel agencies and Hajj trip operators violated Saudi regulations by selling Saudi tourist visas to Egyptian Hajj hopefuls, leaving pilgrims stranded in Mecca and holy sites in scorching temperatures. The fatalities also included 165 pilgrims from Indonesia, 98 from India and dozens more from Jordan, Tunisia, Morocco, Algeria and Malaysia, according to an Associated Press tally. Two U.S. citizens were also reported dead.
While the AP could not independently confirm the causes of death, some countries, including Jordan and Tunisia, blamed the soaring heat. AP journalists witnessed pilgrims fainting from the scorching heat, especially on the second and third days of the Hajj. Some vomited and collapsed. Historically, deaths have been common during the Hajj, which has drawn over 2 million people to Saudi Arabia for a five-day pilgrimage. The event has witnessed deadly stampedes and epidemics. However, this year’s tally was unusually high, indicating exceptional circumstances.
In 2015, a stampede in Mina killed over 2,400 pilgrims, the deadliest incident in the Hajj’s history, according to an AP count. Saudi Arabia has never acknowledged the full toll of the stampede. A separate crane collapse at Mecca’s Grand Mosque earlier that year killed 111. The second-deadliest incident at the Hajj was a 1990 stampede that killed 1,426 people.
During this year’s Hajj period, daily high temperatures ranged between 46 degrees Celsius (117 degrees Fahrenheit) and 49 degrees Celsius (120 degrees Fahrenheit) in Mecca and surrounding sacred sites, according to the Saudi National Center for Meteorology. Some people fainted while trying to perform the symbolic stoning of the devil.
The Hajj, one of the five pillars of Islam, is one of the world’s largest religious gatherings. More than 1.83 million Muslims performed the Hajj in 2024, including more than 1.6 million from 22 countries, and around 222,000 Saudi citizens and residents, according to the Saudi Hajj authorities.
Saudi Arabia has spent billions of dollars on crowd control and safety measures for the annual five-day pilgrimage, but the sheer number of participants makes it difficult to ensure their safety. Climate change could exacerbate the risk. A 2019 study by experts at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology found that even with successful mitigation of climate change’s worst effects, the Hajj would be held in temperatures exceeding an “extreme danger threshold” from 2047 to 2052, and from 2079 to 2086. Islam follows a lunar calendar, so the Hajj comes around 11 days earlier each year. By 2029, the Hajj will occur in April, and for several years after that it will fall in the winter, when temperatures are milder.
