Saudi Arabia under pressure to improve safety at Mecca after fatal hajj crush

Iranian protesters take to Tehran streets chanting ‘death to Al Saud’ as Saudi king orders investigation into crush that left more than 700 pilgrims dead

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Saudi Arabia’s King Salman orders investigation into hajj crush – video report

Matthew Weaver and agencies

Friday 25 September 2015 09.43 BST Last modified on Friday 25 September 2015 15.19 BST

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Thousands of Iranian worshippers have marched in Tehran to protest at Saudi Arabia’s handling of the hajj pilgrimage, adding to growing pressure on the kingdom from within the Islamic world in the wake of death of at least 717 people in a crush outside Mecca.

The Iranian demonstrators carried black banners and chanted “death to Al Saud family” as questions grew about the competence of the Saudi rulers’ handling of the event, which has been marred by a string of tragedies.

Iran blames Saudi mismanagement for deadly hajj crush

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More than 850 people were also wounded in the crush during the symbolic stoning of the devil at Mina, the worst tragedy during the hajj for 25 years. It was the second deadly accident affecting Mecca worshippers this month, after a crane collapse in the holy city killed more than 100.

Saudi Arabia’s King Salman has ordered an urgent safety review into the causes of the crush, to be chaired by the Crown Prince Mohammed bin Nayef. Salman admitted there was a need “to improve the level of organisation and management of movement” of pilgrims, amid pressure from two of the most influential Islamic nations, Iran and Indonesia.

 Iranian worshippers chant “death to Al Saud family” during a protest march in Tehran on Friday. Facebook Twitter Pinterest

 Iranian worshippers chant “death to Al Saud family” during a protest march in Tehran on Friday. Photograph: Vahid Salemi/AP

Saudi authorities have yet to provide a breakdown of the nationalities of the 717 victims, but several foreign countries have announced the deaths of nationals. Death tolls given by foreign officials and international media so far are: Pakistan, 236; Iran, 131; Morocco, 87; India, 14; Egypt, 14; Somalia, 8; Senegal, 5; Tanzania, 4; Turkey, 4; Algeria, 3; Kenya, 3; Indonesia, 3; Burundi, 1; and Netherlands, 1.

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Iran’s national hajj organisation said 60 Iranian nationals were injured in addition to the 131 killed. The Fars news agency said Tehran had summoned the Saudi chargée d’affaires to lodge an official complaint over the disaster.

Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, blamed the Saudi government for the disaster. In a statement, he said: “The Saudi government should accept its responsibility in this bitter incident. We should not overlook that mismanagement and inappropriate conducts caused this disaster.”

The Indonesian president, Joko Widodo, who leads the world’s most populous Muslim nation, said “there must be improvements in the management of the hajj so that this incident is not repeated”.

King Salman called for an improvement in the management of the pilgrimage, but some members of the Saudi government appeared to blame the victims. In a TV address, Salman said: “We have instructed concerned authorities to review the operations plan ... [and] to raise the level of organisation and management to ensure that the guests of God perform their rituals in comfort and ease.”

Emir of Kano Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, head of the Nigerian delegation in Mecca, said Saudi Arabia was wrong to blame the pilgrims. “We are urging the Saudi authorities not to apportion blame for not obeying instructions, they should instead look into the issues of this disaster,” he told BBC Radio 4’s World at One programme.

Iran’s attack on Saudi Arabia was met by angry responses on social media. A UAE cartoonist depicted an Ayatollah Khamenei figure stabbing King Salman in the back. And Saudi Twitter users set up an Arabic hashtag complaining of an Iranian “conspiracy to light the fuse of sectarianism”.

Saudi officials have denied reports that the stampede was linked to the arrival in Mina of Prince Mohammad bin Salman Al Saud and his large security entourage. Reports first published by the the Arabic-language daily al-Diyar said the prince arrived at Mina for a meeting with his father the king accompanied by 350 members of the security forces. It said the stampede occurred when the one-way traffic directions were reversed to allow the prince’s convoy to get through.

Saudi Arabia said the report was “incorrect”.

Mohammed Jafari, an adviser to Haj and Umrah Travel, the first hajj tour operator in the UK, claimed the alleged road closures were a contributory factor to the crush.

Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, he said: “The Saudis say after every disaster ‘it is God’s will’. It is not God’s will – it is man’s incompetence. Talking to pilgrims on the ground yesterday, the main reason for this accident was that the king, in his palace in Mina, was receiving dignitaries and for this reason they closed two entrances to where the stoning happened ... these were the two roads where people were not able to proceed.

“You have a stream of people going in and if you stop that stream, and the population builds up, eventually there is going to be an accident.

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 Mohammad Jafari, an adviser to the UK’s oldest hajj travel company, criticises the Mecca authorities on Friday

“It is the fault of the Saudi government because any time a prince comes along, they close the roads, they don’t think about the disaster waiting to happen.”

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Jafari called on the British government to use its influence with the Saudis to improve safety at the pilgrimage. He said: “They have to change their ways and have proper disaster planning and proper crisis management. They have CCTV and in this investigation they should look at the CCTV footage. If someone caused this accident, they should be fired. There should be a proper investigation, a criminal investigation.”

Liaqat Hussain, a trustee at Bradford central mosque who has been on the hajj, said: “There is total lack of crowd management.” 

He told Good Morning Britain that there was no proper guidance and no proper directions for the people there. Hussain said there needed to be improvements and that the British government should set up an inquiry into the incident.

The Saudi health minister, Khalid al-Falih, claimed the pilgrims had been undisciplined. He told local television: “The accident, as most know, was a stampede caused by overcrowding, and also caused by some of the pilgrims not following the movement instructions of the security and hajj ministry.”

Hajj pilgrimage stampede: a visual guide to the fatal crush near Mecca

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High temperatures and exhaustion may have contributed to the disaster, the military spokesman Maj Gen Mansour al-Turki said, but he said there was no indication the authorities were to blame. He was quoted by Associated Press as saying: “Unfortunately, these incidents happen in a moment.”

Prince Khaled al-Faisal, the head of Saudi Arabia’s central hajj committee, was criticised on social media after reportedly blaming the fatal crush on “some pilgrims with African nationalities”. Jafari accused the Saudi government of making racist statements by suggesting that the stampede was caused by African pilgrims.

An interior ministry spokesman said the investigation would look into what caused an unusual mass of pilgrims to congregate at the location of the disaster. He told a press conference in Mina: “The reason for that is not known yet.”

Pope Francis touched on the pain felt in the Islamic world during his address to both houses of the US Congress on Thursday evening. He began his homily by telling his “Muslim brothers and sisters” that they were assured of his prayers for “the tragedy they have suffered at Mecca”.