More than 50 degrees

Mecca: Over 1000 heat deaths during the Hajj pilgrimage

Rescue workers carry away a person who collapsed in the heat in the Mina Valley near Mecca.(Bild: AP)

Blazing heat currently prevails in Mecca in Saudi Arabia, where the Muslim pilgrimage Hajj takes place. The number of deaths has already risen to over 1000. At least 600 people from Egypt alone have died from the extreme heat so far.

Pilgrims who are not officially registered accounted for more than half of the deaths in a count by the AFP news agency on Thursday. According to an Arab diplomat, 658 of the dead came from Egypt, 630 of whom were not officially registered.

The AFP news agency based its count on information from various countries. Jordan, Iran, Iraq, Tunisia, Indonesia and Senegal have also reported deaths at the Hajj in recent days. According to official figures, only 90 deaths have been counted so far on Wednesday. However, the authorities did not comment explicitly on deaths caused by the high temperatures.

Difficult search for missing persons
Many believers take part in the Hajj without an official pilgrimage license for financial reasons and are therefore not registered by the Saudi Arabian authorities. This makes the search for missing relatives in hospitals much more difficult.

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Temperatures were already around 40 degrees Celsius at the start of the Hajj last Friday, rising to 51.8 degrees at the beginning of the week. All new confirmed deaths are due to the heat, the Arab diplomat said on Wednesday.

Almost two million pilgrims
The Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia is one of the five pillars of Islam and should be undertaken at least once in a lifetime by every healthy Muslim who can afford it. The period of the pilgrimage is determined by the Islamic calendar and has repeatedly coincided with periods of heat in recent years. According to official figures, 1.8 million believers took part this year, including 1.6 million pilgrims from abroad.

Many of the rituals are performed in the open air and on foot, which is particularly challenging for older people. According to the Saudi authorities, more than 2,700 cases of heat-related exhaustion were recorded on Sunday alone.