More than 1,000 pilgrims have died during the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia this week as the yearly pilgrimage fell during a scorching summer in the Middle Eastern kingdom and amidst an ongoing heatwave in the northern hemispheres that affects cities and regions across four continents.
2024 Hajj: Extreme heat in Saudi Arabia, has caused the death of over 1,000 pilgrims as the temperature reached 51 degrees Celsius according to the Saudi Arabia official.
Hajj deaths this year are much higher than usual. Average for the past 50 years is about 200 a year. This… pic.twitter.com/cOvfhxg88l— ZAMAN MALIK (@zamannx) June 20, 2024
The death toll from this year’s Hajj pilgrimage has exceeded 1,000, a rise of almost 550 from June 18th. The new death figures included 58 Egyptians, according to an Arab diplomat who provided a breakdown showing that of the 658 deaths from Egypt for this year’s pilgrimage, around 630 (or more than 90% of the reported deaths from this country) were not registered with the Saudi government, which distributes Hajj visas by country based on a quota system.
The Egyptian government announced that a crisis unit would investigate these deaths and said the 28 deaths had been confirmed from a group of 50,752 officially registered Egyptian pilgrims. However, it gave no figures for the deaths of unregistered pilgrims.
Aside from Egypt, Jordan also confirmed the deaths of 68 Jordanian nationals who traveled to Saudi Arabia for the yearly Hajj pilgrimage. In contrast, 16 others remained missing, according to an official statement released by the Jordanian Foreign Ministry on June 20th. The ministry said those who died were buried in Mecca as per the wishes of their families.
550+ Hajj Pilgrims died due to extreme heat & their dead bodies left on the streets of Mecca
The dead include 323 Egyptians, 60 pilgrims from Jordan and 35 from Tunisia
Mecca recorded temprature of 51.8 degree & expected to go up. officials fearing more deaths in coming days pic.twitter.com/n6Jh1fKOuc— Hindutva Knight (@HPhobiaWatch) June 19, 2024
Along with Egypt and Jordan, around ten countries have reported a total of 1,081 deaths during the annual pilgrimage. Fatalities have been confirmed to media outlets such as the AFP by countries and regions like Malaysia, Pakistan, Indonesia, Iran, Tunisia, Senegal, and Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan region. The figures came from official statements or diplomats working on their countries' responses.
Tens of thousands of pilgrims and worshippers attempt to perform the Hajj yearly through irregular channels because they cannot afford to get official permits, which are often too costly. Although Saudi authorities reported that they cleared hundreds of thousands of unregistered pilgrims from Mecca earlier this month, many undocumented pilgrims still participated in the main rites that started on June 14th.
While Saudi authorities have not provided information on the deaths, it reported more than 2,700 cases of "heat exhaustion" on June 16th alone.
Saudi Arabia shuts pilgrims out of air-conditioned areas as more than 1,000 die in extreme heat https://t.co/6wfQ90UP89 via @@YahooNews
— Diane Askwyth (@dianerocks52) June 21, 2024
Aside from a scorching heat wave in the northern hemisphere that spans four continents, climate change also heightened the risk of deaths during this annual pilgrimage, which is one of the five pillars of Islam that every able-bodied and financially able Muslim must complete at least once.
Experts at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology conducted a study in 2019, which discovered that even if the world succeeds in mitigating the worst effects of climate change, the Hajj would be held in temperatures exceeding an “extreme danger threshold” from 2047 to 2052 and from 2079 to 2086.
A Saudi study published last month also determined that temperatures in the areas where rituals are performed rise to 0.4 degrees Celsius (or less than one degree Fahrenheit) each decade, showing how Hajj pilgrimages are being affected by a climate breakdown. On June 17th, temperatures at the Grand Mosque in Mecca hit 51.8 degrees Celsius, according to Saudi Arabia’s National Meteorology Center.
Islam follows a lunar calendar, so the Hajj falls around 11 days earlier as each year passes. By 2029, the Hajj will occur in April; in the next several years, it will fall in the winter, where temperatures are milder.
