Makkah Saudi Arabia - June 20, 2024
Arab social media has been flooded this week with shocking images from Saudi Arabia. There are photos and videos showing pilgrims slumped on the side of the road or in wheelchairs, apparently on the verge of death or already deceased.

On their way to Mecca, they are wearing the traditional white clothes of pilgrims and their faces are covered. In several images, there appear to be abandoned corpses, presumably at the place where they collapsed.

What started as a rumour on social media was confirmed by the end of the week: hundreds of pilgrims have died in Saudi Arabia, evidently due to the extremely high temperatures or lack of shelter and water.

Temperatures in Mecca, Islam's holiest city, soared to 51.8 degrees Celsius. Some 1.8 million Muslims were expected to arrive for one of the largest religious gatherings in the world. The pilgrimage to Mecca is one of the five pillars of Islam, and every Muslim who is able to make it is supposed to do so at least once in his or her lifetime.

The governments of Egypt, Indonesia, Senegal, Jordan, Iran, Iraq, India and Tunisia have confirmed the deaths of pilgrims from those countries. More than 300 were probably from Egypt. The Indonesian Ministry of Health also reported the deaths of more than 140 nationals.
In recent years, the Saudi authorities have tried to take measures to mitigate the impact of high summer temperatures on visitors by providing misting stations and water dispensers. Despite this, it is believed that the vast majority of deaths are likely to be heat-related. Many of the pilgrims who make the journey to Mecca are elderly, as it is something they want to do before they die.

With images in association with Rizwan Almakki.

SHOTLIST:
1. Various from the pilgrimage to Mecca.