Incidents during the Hajj


There have been numerous incidents during the Hajj', the Muslim pilgrimage to the city of Mecca, that have caused loss of life. Every follower of Islam is required to visit Mecca during the Hajj at least once in his or her lifetime, if able to do so; according to Islam, the pilgrimage is one of the Five Pillars of Islam. During the month of the Hajj, Mecca must cope with as many as three million pilgrims.
Plane travel makes Mecca and the Hajj more accessible to pilgrims from all over the world. As a consequence, the Hajj has become increasingly crowded. City officials are required to control large crowds and provide food, shelter, sanitation, and emergency services for millions. However, it has not always been possible to prevent incidents.

Crushes and failures of crowd control

Sometimes the dense, surging troupes, trekking from one station of the pilgrimage to the next, cause a stampede, or more precisely, a progressive troupe collapse. At densities above 6 or 7 persons per square meter, individuals cannot move, groups are swept along in waves, individuals jostle to find breath and to avoid falling and being trampled, and hundreds of deaths can occur as a result. The stoning of the devil ceremony is particularly crowded and dangerous. Pilgrims ritualistically throw pebbles at three walls which represent the three places where the Hadiths describes how the devil tempted Abraham. It is one of a series of ritual acts that must be performed during the Hajj.
Some notable incidents include:
Mingling of visitors from many countries, some of which have poor health care systems still plagued by preventable infectious diseases, can lead to the spread of epidemics. If an outbreak were to occur on the road to Mecca, pilgrims could exacerbate the problem when they returned home and passed their infection on to others. This was more of a problem in the past. One such disease, which has prompted response from the Saudi government, is meningitis as it became a primary concern after an international outbreak following the Hajj in 1987. Due to post-Hajj outbreaks globally of certain types of meningitis in previous years, it is now a visa requirement to be immunised with the ACW135Y vaccine before arrival. Every year, the Saudi government publishes a list of required vaccines for pilgrims, which for 2010 also included yellow fever, polio, and influenza.

Middle East respiratory syndrome

, the Saudi government asked "elderly and chronically ill Muslims to avoid the hajj this year" and restricted the numbers of people allowed into the country due to Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus. Although MERS-CoV was not detected among pilgrims, this does not rule out risk of the disease at Hajj. The disease, though, is only mildly contagious.

COVID-19

The spread of the 2019 coronavirus prompted the Saudi Arabian government to discourage people from planning for the Hajj in 2020. On April 21, the Saudis announced that there would be no public attendance at Taraweeh in Mecca or in Medina.

Historical outbreaks

During the 1821 Hajj, about 20,000 Meccan pilgrims died due to a cholera epidemic. The disease had started in India in 1817.
Another cholera epidemic began in 1863. It started in the Ganges Delta of the Bengal region and traveled with Muslim pilgrims to Mecca during the 1865 hajj. In its first year, the epidemic claimed the life of 15,000 to 90,000 pilgrims. Cholera spread throughout the Middle East and was carried to Russia, Europe, Africa and North America. It resulted in the death of almost 600,000 people.
In 1905 the El Tor strain of cholera was discovered in six pilgrims returning from Hajj at the El-Tor quarantine camp in Egypt.
In 2009, 73 cases of H1N1, which is also known as swine flu were recorded at the final days of Hajj. 5 pilgrims died due to the virus.

Construction failures

2006 Al Ghaza hotel collapse

A concrete multi-story building located in Mecca close to the Grand Mosque collapsed on January 5, 2006. The building, the Al-Ghaza Hotel, is said to have housed a restaurant, a convenience store, and a hotel. The hotel was reported to have been housing pilgrims to the 2006 Hajj. It is not clear how many pilgrims were in the hotel at the time of the collapse. As of the latest reports, the death toll was 76 and the number of injured was 64.

2015 crane collapse

A crane fell in the grand mosque on September 11, 2015, ten days before Hajj, causing 118 deaths and 394 injuries.

Other fatal events

Of the millions of pilgrims each year, many are elderly, and some die of their illnesses, exacerbated in some cases by the heat and exertion.
Of late, pickpocketing has created numerous problems for Hajj pilgrims. According to the Save Madina Foundation, 321 were victims of pickpocketing during Hajj in 2010.

Sexual abuse and miscarriages

Female pilgrims have spoken up about sexual abuse experienced on the Hajj through a movement called the Mosque Me Too movement. Using the hashtag #MosqueMeToo, which stems from the Me Too movement which used the hashtag #MeToo, Muslim women have shared their experiences online about sexual abuse in Mecca.
Many pregnant pilgrims get miscarriages due to performing the hajj. In 2011, 20 pregnant women performing the pilgrimage had miscarriages due to exhaustion. In 2018, an unspecified number of pregnant Nigerian pilgrims suffered miscarriages.

Official responses

Critics say that the Saudi government should have done more to prevent such tragedies. The Saudi government insists that any such mass gatherings are inherently dangerous and difficult to handle, and that they have taken a number of steps to prevent the problems. The fatalities in the largest tragedy in September 2015 are alleged to have been downplayed by the Saudis by as many as 1,700.
One of the biggest steps, which is also controversial, is a new system of registrations, passports, and travel visas to control the flow of pilgrims. This system is designed to encourage and accommodate first-time visitors to Mecca, while restricting repeat visits. Pilgrims who have the means and desire to perform the Hajj several times have protested what they see as discrimination, but the Hajj Commission has stated that they see no alternative if further tragedies are to be prevented.
Following the 2004 stampede, Saudi authorities embarked on major construction work in and around the Jamaraat Bridge area. Additional accessways, footbridges, and emergency exits were built, and the three cylindrical pillars were replaced with concrete walls to enable more pilgrims simultaneous access to them without the jostling and fighting for position of recent years. The government has also announced a multimillion-dollar project to expand the bridge to five levels; the project is planned for completion in time for the 1427 AH Hajj.
Following the 2006 incident, the Jamaraat Bridge and the pillars representing Satan were demolished and reconstructed. A wider, multi-level bridge was built, and massive columns replaced the pillars themselves. Now, each level of the bridge allows easier and safer access to the columns representing Satan. In addition, the stoning ceremony must be carried out according to pre-determined schedules to prevent over-crowding and the attendant risks. The Jamaraat basin has been expanded from its current circular shape into an oval to allow better access to the pillars. The new arrangements provide for separate access and departure routes.
However, a security breakdown is mentioned as cause for the 2015 stampede. A group of pilgrims who had cast their own stones and were returning to their camp, instead of taking the route designated for returning pilgrims, they took the route meant for those who were coming and crossed the other group of pilgrims heading straight to the jamaraat.