At least seven Pakistani pilgrims including two women died of natural causes in Saudi Arabia.
According to details, the deceased have been identified as Shani, Abid Hussain Khan, Muhammad Hafeez-ur-Rehman, Muahmmad Tanzeem, Fareed Khan, Zeenat and Ata Muhammad.
The pilgrims were the residents of Peshawar, Mianwali, Karachi, Gujranwala, Islamabad, Sargodha and Dera Ghazi Khan.Saudi Arabia expects to receive around 2 million pilgrims for this Hajj season, including 1.7 million foreigners, Al Hayat local newspaper reported on Sunday.
Last year, more than 1.8 million performed Hajj and most of them were foreigners, while the Ministry of Hajj will assign more than 95,000 employees, in addition to volunteers to handle Hajj-related tasks.
Health ministry announced that all pilgrims attending the Hajj pilgrimage are so far free from epidemic and quarantine diseases.
The ministry said they are taking preventative policies as a priority, and coordinating with the World Health Organization and other international authorities to ensure there is no epidemic outbreak.
The ministry also announced the implementation of 3.3 million U.S. dollar Hajj-related medical facilities and services.
Some notable incidents include:
- July 2, 1990: A stampede inside a pedestrian tunnel (Al-Ma'aisim tunnel) leading out from Mecca towards Mina and the Plains of Arafat led to the deaths of 1,426 pilgrims, many of them of Malaysian, Indonesian and Pakistani origin.
- May 23, 1994: A stampede killed at least 270 pilgrims at the stoning of the Devil ritual.
- April 9, 1998: at least 118 pilgrims were trampled to death and 180 injured in an incident on Jamaraat Bridge.
- March 5, 2001: 35 pilgrims were trampled to death in a stampede during the stoning of the Devil ritual.
- February 11, 2003: The stoning of the Devil ritual claimed 14 pilgrims' lives.
- February 1, 2004: 251 pilgrims were killed and another 244 injured in a stampede during the stoning ritual in Mina.
- January 22, 2005: A stampede through the stoning ritual in Mina led to the killing of three pilgrims[8]
- January 12, 2006: A stampede during the stoning of the Devil on the last day of the Hajj in Mina killed at least 346 pilgrims and injured at least 289 more. The incident occurred shortly after 13:00 local time, when a busload of travelers arrived together at the eastern access ramps to the Jamaraat Bridge. This caused pilgrims to trip, rapidly resulting in a lethal stampede. An estimated two million people were performing the ritual at the time.
- September 24, 2015: At least 2,236[ pilgrims were killed during a stampede. The Saudi government is yet to release an official report. A few weeks after the incident, the Saudi Vice Minister of Health officially announced 4,173 people dead in this incident in a press release,however, this page was removed from the website within three hours and requesting it would redirect the visitor to the home page. The Saudi Health Minister claimed that the published death toll was false in a Twitter post. Fars News, a semi-official news agency of Iran, provided a walkthrough video to accessing the page assuming it was out of reach due to high page requests. An AP report compiled from official reports and statements totaled the deaths at at least 1,470, over 700 more than the figures from Saudi authorities, and the worst toll so far in Mecca. The AP later updated its estimate to 2,411 pilgrims killed.
