“As of today, 15 pilgrims from the Kurdistan Region have died,” Rozhgar Jaafar, head of media for the Region’s delegation to Hajj, told Rudaw’s Soran Hussein, attributing their deaths to a deadly heatwave.
“14 of them went to Saudi Arabia without official procedures and on one-year visas,” Jaafar said, and only one was officially registered with the Kurdistan Region’s Hajj and Umrah directorate.
Karwan Stoni, head of media in the Kurdistan Regional Government’s (KRG) endowment ministry, told AFP news agency on Monday that those with official Hajj permits were not permitted entry into air-conditioned areas provided by Saudi authorities.
Speaking to Rudaw on Sunday, some of the families lamented that their members suffered from heatstroke, with temperatures this year at least 1.5 degrees Celsius higher than average. Temperatures at Mecca’s Grand Mosque reached a sweltering 51.8 degrees Celsius, and in nearby Mina, the temperature was 46 degrees.
Nearly 4,600 pilgrims who are registered by Kurdish authorities have attended this year’s Hajj, but almost all of the Kurdish pilgrims that died had entered Saudi Arabia on a tourist visa - a violation of the regulations put in place by the kingdom.
Pshtiwan Sadiq, the KRG’s minister of endowment and religious affairs, told reporters on Sunday that his ministry does not have the exact figures of those on tourist visas, but estimated their number to be between 5,000 and 7,000. He said that they requested the Saudi officials to allow them to perform the ritual, only to be told by their Saudi counterparts that they could not make an exception for the Kurdish pilgrims.
The first pilgrims are expected to return to the Kurdistan Region starting from June 20, according to Kurdish officials. Those who entered Saudi Arabia by land are the first to return to the Region. About 1,400 have crossed the border by land.
The annual Hajj, a religious obligation for all Muslims who are financially and physically capable, draws millions of Muslims worldwide to gather in Saudi Arabia. Pilgrims journey to sacred sites throughout the country, including the Kaaba in Mecca, which holds the esteemed status of being the holiest site in Islam.
Every year, thousands of individuals from the Kurdistan Region undertake the pilgrimage.
