The death toll from the stampede during last month’s haj pilgrimage in Makkah has reached 1,399, more than 600 more than the official tally from Saudi authorities, according to Associated Press (AP).
The news agency’s figures are derived from information provided by 18 of the more than 100 countries that took part in the pilgrimage this year. The worst affected was Iran, which lost 465 pilgrims, while 148 Egyptians and 120 Indonesians died.
Saudi Arabia has maintained that its official toll of 769 killed and 934 injured is accurate, although an investigation into the cause of the disaster is ongoing. That number has not been updated since two days after the disaster on 26 September.
If the AP figure is correct, it is close to the worst ever disaster to hit the annual pilgrimage. A stampede in 1990 killed 1,426 people.
The haj, the world’s largest annual gathering of people, has been the scene of numerous deadly stampedes, fires and riots in the past, but their frequency was greatly reduced in recent years as the government spent billions of dollars upgrading and expanding haj infrastructure and crowd control technology.
Safety during the haj is a politically sensitive issue for the kingdom’s ruling Al Saud dynasty, which presents itself internationally as the guardian of orthodox Islam and custodian of its holiest places in Makkah and Medina.
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