Incidents during Hajj

Incidents

The stoning of the devil, ritual is the most dangerous part of the pilgrimage and the sudden movements crowd on or near the Jamarat bridge can cause people to be crushed Umrah Tour packages Uk. On several occasions, hundreds of participants have been suffocated or crushed in stampedes.

The bridge has expanded in recent years to accommodate the growing number of pilgrims making the pilgrimage each year, but due to the large size of the crowd the ritual is almost impossible to control. An important step in crowd management is the recent replacement of jamarat pillars by walls to facilitate and accelerate stoning.

The conditions are especially difficult for people during the last day of Hajj, which is the day the pilgrims leave the Mina valley and return to Mecca for the farewell Tawaf (the final turns of the Kaaba). According to the hadith, the last stoning of Muhammad took place just after the noon prayer. Many scholars believe that the ritual can be done at any time between noon and dusk on this day, however, many Muslims are taught that it should be done immediately after the noon prayer. This leads to people camping until noon and running after the stoning. Because this is also the day the pilgrims prepare to leave Mina, many of them also take their luggage with them to the jamarat,

These two factors are perceived as most responsible for the most recent tragedy during the 2006 Hajj, in which a stampede killed at least 346 pilgrims and wounded 289 more. This despite several attempts by the authorities to inform the pilgrims about the admissibility of the amazing their visits to the jamarat, as well as instruct them to leave their luggage in their stores. Adding to the confusion in the tragedy is the lack of cooperation on the part of the pilgrims who do not leave the jamarat zone by the correct route, and therefore interfere with the movement of the others who are arriving.