Riyadh:
After years of failing to obtain a hajj visa, Yasser eventually concluded he had no choice but to conduct the holy pilgrimage illegally, a move he has now come to regret.
While he survived the grueling annual rituals that took place again this year in extreme heat, he has not seen his wife since Sunday and fears she is among the more than a thousand reported fatalities – the majority of whom are unregistered Egyptians, such as himself.
“I have searched every hospital in Makkah. She is not here,” the 60-year-old retired engineer told AFP by telephone on Friday from his hotel room, where he is reluctant to pack his wife’s suitcase in the hope that she will return. to do it yourself.
‘I don’t want to believe in the possibility that she is dead. Because if she’s dead, it’s the end of her life and it’s the end of my life too.’
Egypt is responsible for more than half of this year’s hajj fatalities – 658 of the more than 1,000 reported Friday by about 10 countries ranging from Senegal to Indonesia, according to an AFP tally.
An Arab diplomat told AFP that 630 of those 658 dead Egyptians were unregistered, meaning they could not rely on access to facilities meant to make the pilgrimage more bearable.
That included air-conditioned tents intended to provide some relief as temperatures in the Grand Mosque in Mecca, the holiest site in Islam, rose as high as 51.8 degrees Celsius (125 Fahrenheit).
Saudi authorities did not respond to requests for comment on the fatalities.
The Health Ministry reported more than 2,700 cases of “heat exhaustion” on Sunday alone, but has not updated the figure since.
Costs off the books
The Hajj, one of the five pillars of Islam, must be completed by all Muslims at least once with the means.
Yet official permits are allocated to countries through a quota system and distributed to individuals through a lottery.
Even for those who can obtain them, the high cost makes the irregular route — which costs thousands of dollars less — more attractive.
That’s especially true since 2019, when Saudi Arabia began issuing general tourist visas, making it easier to travel to the Gulf kingdom.
But for Yasser, who declined to be identified by his full name because he is still in Saudi Arabia, the complications of his deregistration became apparent as soon as he reached the country in May.
Well before the formal hajj rituals began a week ago, some shops and restaurants refused service to visitors who could not show permission on the official hajj app, known as Nusuk.
Once the long days of walking and praying under the scorching sun got underway, he could no longer access the official hajj buses – the only means of transportation around the holy sites – without paying exorbitant, unofficial fees.
When the heat drove him to exhaustion, he sought urgent care at a hospital in Mina but was turned away, he said, again for lack of a license.
As their circumstances deteriorated, Yasser and his wife Safaa became lost in the crowd during the ‘stoning of the devil’ ritual in Mina.
Since then, Yasser has repeatedly postponed their return flight home, hoping she will show up.
“I’ll keep putting it off until I find her,” he said.
‘All Egypt is sad’
Other unregistered Egyptian pilgrims interviewed by AFP this week described similar hardships – and similarly alarming sights along the hajj route as the heat’s toll mounted.
“There were dead bodies on the ground” in Arafat, Mina and on the way to Mecca, said Mohammed, 31, an Egyptian living in Saudi Arabia who performed the hajj this year with his 56-year-old mother.
“I saw people suddenly collapse and die of exhaustion.”
Another Egyptian whose mother died on the pilgrimage route, and who declined to be identified even by a first name because she lives in Riyadh, said it was impossible to get her mother an ambulance.
An emergency vehicle showed up only after her mother was dead and took the body to an unknown location.
“Until now, my cousins in Mecca are still looking for my mother’s body,” she said.
“Don’t we have the right to finally see her before she is buried?”
Even some registered pilgrims struggled to access emergency services, indicating a system that was overwhelmed, said Mustafa, whose elderly parents – who had their hajj permits – both died after becoming separated from younger relatives.
“We knew they were tired,” Mustafa told AFP by phone from Egypt. “They walked very long distances and couldn’t find any water, and it was so hot.”
He had looked forward to welcoming them home once they returned, but now his only solace comes from the fact that they are buried in the holy city of Mecca.
“Of course we believe in what God has written for them… but all of Egypt is sad,” he said.
“We’ll never see them again.”
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
