by Camera EyeThe bad omen surrounding the 2015 mecca tour seems to have manifested itself but in a very controversial and extremely disastrous manner.
The huge crowd of pilgrimers were walking quietly in the well constructed and air-conditioned isle in the files they were meant to in order to get to the next stop in the holy city of mecca, Saudi Arabia.
As the crowd begins to approach Lebanon, something went wrong although it have not been figured out exactly what, but it was terrifying and rose up a mass panic. The uncoordinated motions led to collisions, fall and possible stampedes. The evidence of these were the bloody asphalt littered with sandals, crushed wheelchairs and of course dead bodies numbering over 701.
This records the greatest tragedy of the mecca tour since the dawn of the century, with over 700 death and almost 1000 injured most of them already in casualties receiving treatment. The leaders of the nation of Saudi Arabia has been dealing with a lot of puzzling circumstances this season which includes the fall in oil prize, handling the crisis in Yemen and having to deal with the fiercely growing tension between them and their neighbor Iran. Adding more problems to their cart will not be easy for the king Salam to handle.
Really, bad omens are surrounding this seasons pilgrimage just last week, a lifting machine had collapsed, crushing over 100 people, also in the series is the fire disaster in one of the Hotels causing a lot of injuries. The stampede is just the most recent accidents released to the media. These incidents creates a loss of value to the monarch state of Saudi, as they take great pride in honoring the title "the global orthodox Islam custodian and guardian of the holy city". Receiving and harboring over 100000 pilgrimers every year.
The head monarch King Salam appeared on the Saudi state television to express his condolences to the families affected by the loss and had promised to investigate the real cause of the panic leading to the accident and also to take the necessary actions in making sure that the pilgrimage management is reviewed.
Saudi state minister of health Khalid al-Falih also appeared to state the health status of the injured, and then suggested the possible cause of the panic as the default of some miscreants to follow the directives of the responsible authorities.
But an affected witness said that the stampede could not have occurred if the security had no blocked the main exit which led to the crowding that caused the accident.
A Saudi civil servant Khalid Saleh said that he was on his duty post when he suddenly began to hear loud, unusual screams and sounds of siren immediately he came out to see what was happening but was beheld with an immense number of people both men, women, and children on the asphalt floor covered with blood, some of them struggling for survival while some looked still perhaps dead. He continued to say that the exit was closed in order to allow the VIP cars in.
The Iranian government blamed the Saudi leaders for unscrupulous management of the mecca event. The director of the Hajj organisation Sayid Ohadi said that at the site of the incident, the two main exits were closed for some reasons he can't fathom.
On the early morning drift programme on the Iranian state television, he said that "closing the main exits in events like this is so very unacceptable especially for the reason giving and therefore the Saudi officials should be held accountable for the tragedy".
The Iran national chief leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei while responding to the current death statistics of the Iranians involved in the incident, said that the Saudi official has caused the death of his people and therefore declared a three days public mourning.
According to the Iranian news agency, over 130 Iran nationals were among the dead figure and an unknown number injured.
A lot has been invested by the Saudi Arabian government in improving the simplicity of the pilgrimage in terms of shelter accommodation, increase in the grand mosque size, enhancing easy movement including a 200 meters width perdestrian lane, on recent accounts, all these costs over a billion dollars.
At the construction site in 2006 a bridge collapse and killed over 300 workers. Since then, work have been slow for the sake of carefulness.
Recent events could arose criticism on the weakness of the Saudi official of planning effectively one of the biggest human periodic migration and event.
The director of a research organisation "Islamic Heritage Research
Foundation" (IHRF) Irfan an-Alawi, in mecca on a phone briefing criticised the Saudi government for poor management and coordination of the hajj pilgrimage. Irfan also had recently also criticized the developmental scheme of the Saudi governments investment on mecca and Medina in relation to the Hajj.
Unfortunately, the incident happened on the first day of the Eid al-Adha holyday which seems to have completely jeopardised the rest of the ritual processes. The stampede occurred at the street of Mina near the T-shaped narrow street east of the holy city Mecca where the pilgrimers are supposed to gather and throw pebbles on the walls, this is a ritual process is recognised as the stoning of the devil by the Muslims.
A Turkish spokesman in the event Maj. Gen Mansour, reported that the large crowd when the panic was ignited, collided with each-other under the blazing heat of the sun causing a lot of fatigue and the horrific stampede that followed.
He refused to say something about the blocked exit claiming that he needs to know for sure the main reason for the temporary blockage and thus seeks to wait for the out come of the investigations. Reports were later gotten that media reporters were restricted from reaching the site of the incident and knowing the cause of the incident until later on about an hour.
A survivor of the stampede in the casualty described his experience of the whole scenario; how he felt his back stamped on and his effort to stand on his feet. According to Abdullah Lofty a pilgrimmer from Egypt he said "though i was on the ground not knowing where i was, i saw a man on a wheelchair being tripped over and several others stumbling on him and the chair, i also saw a man carrying his daughter on his shoulder just to let her breath".
Normally, cellphones and cameras were not allowed into the main sanctuary and the rule didn't seem to bend today the only footage and photos gotten from the incident were the one that happened in the other areas of the holy-city.
The Catholic papal pope Francis, on receiving the news as he arrived in New York expressed his condolence to his Muslim brethren.
This years Mecca disaster is the worse ever recorded in the event after the 1990 calamity which left over 1,400 people dead in a tunnel leading from Mecca to Mina.
On the 11th September, a crane crashed upon the roof of a musque during worship causing over 200 death and 500 casualties. The Saudi Binladin construction company were faulted for the accident, depriving them of any future contracts and also banning its top officials from leaving the country untill futher notice.
The Saudi government on its attempt to make the event as luxurious and comfortable as possible has invested over 1 billion dollars used in the construction of new buildings and the world biggest hotel which has caused critics to say that the event is gradually turning from what it used to be to an "event for the rich alone".
The Saudi government every year is faced with a huge task of organising this event directing a huge crowd from all over the world through some specific sites within a very specified period of time when the people have no single language is a big challenge.
Over a million people attended this seasons pilgrimage which was the greatest number of attendance in the history thus the event organiser were faced with more work than usual considering the diversity involved. According to an interview with a pilgrimer, "it is really a great job to organise this event but the government should have established a more efficient crowd control system instead of building hotels, who is going to louge in them now?". He went on to say that this issue of more luxuries on the trip is not what people have in mind while coming for the event "we only came to perform our Islamic obligations and not to live in hotels, the royal household should be held responsible for this accident"
The Saudi state on its own accord tried not to show the horror that just happened. It reported the incident on a text banner that runs across the screen periodically while the normal pilgrimage programmes were going on play. Later, a shot video of rescued injured persons were shown.
On closing the programme, the Saudi TV presenter said that it was one of the things that are to be expected in large gatherings, and also said that Muslims should know and recall that it is a virtue to die in the course of performing the pilgrim right and that it is an express to heaven thus the tragedy is just temporary.
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