By IPS Correspondents
ABU DHABI, Apr 16 1997 (IPS)

Over two million Muslims pushed on to the final stage of the Haj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia on Wednesday, despite the disastrous fire that engulfed some 70,000 tents yesterday, killing and injuring hundreds of pilgrims.

Pilgrims clad in seamless white cloth streamed to Mount Arafat, outside Makkah, even as Saudi authorities began the difficult task of identifying the victims of Tuesday’s conflagration. Many bodies are charred beyond recognition.

Officials in the United Arab Emirtes (UAE) say that if the cause of the fire was indeed a cooking gas cylinder, then the incident was regrettable as Haj organisers arrange for cooked food to be supplied to the pilgrims in the colossal tented city.

Witnesses, quoted in Saudi newspapers, said dozens of people were killed in the inferno and many more in the stampede by panicking pilgrims. Saudi officials on Wednesday put the number of dead at 217, but that death toll is expected to rise.

Fierce flames, fueled by strong winds, swept through the tents on the plains of Mina, outside Makkah in western Saudi Arabia. The tents, pitched close together, quickly caught fire.

South Asian diplomatic missions contacted by IPS in Riyadh and Jeddah gave no exact figures about the number of victims, but most of those who died are reported to be from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh.

Saudi newspapers on Wednesday said the fire had also engulfed tents housing pilgrims from Malaysia, Indonesia, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, Sudan, Yemen and Morocco.

The process of identifying the dead will not be over until the pilgrims leave Saudi, and the authorities can count the number of unclaimed travel documents.

The enormous blaze is the latest tragedy to strike the annual pilgrimage to Makkah, the holiest shrine for Muslims. The Koran says able-bodied Muslims are obliged to make the Haj at least once if they can afford it.

The fire broke out as the pilgrims, gathering in Mina, were preparing for the afternoon prayers. It was put out by fire trucks and helicopters.

Most Muslims who have gone on the Haj previously agree that despite the massive safety precautions taken, the gathering of people from different parts of the world, speaking in so many different languages, make it all the more difficult for the Saudi authorities to rule out disasters like Tuesday’s fire.

“Last year I visited a Malaysian encampment and to my surprise I saw a kiln between the tents which were filled with mainly old people,” a Muslim who went on the Haj told IPS.

Two years ago, a small fire ripped through a pilgrim camp near Mina during the pilgrimage, killing three people and injuring 99.

The worst of recent Makkah tragedies was a stampede in 1990 in which 1,426 pilgrims were crushed to death in a tunnel. Many of those who died were from Malaysia, Indonesia and Pakistan. Four years later in another stampede, 270 pilgrims were killed.

In 1989, two bombs exploded killing one person and wounding 16 others, and in 1987 around 400 Iranian pilgrims were killed in clashes with the Saudi security forces, following which Iran was banned from sending pilgrims to the Haj.

In 1979, several hundred armed men hostile to the Saudi government barricaded themselves Makkah’s great mosque for two weeks, taking many pilgrims hostage. Some 153 people were killed and 560 injured in the incident.

Over the last 10 years, the Saudi government, official custodians of Islam’s two holiest shrines, has spent around 18.6 billion to expand pilgrim facilities in Makkah and surrounding areas, including the Grand Mosque housing the Kaaba, a black cube-shaped building draped with a gold-embroidered black silk cloth that Muslims across the world face to pray.

Saudi officials have been taking all kinds of precautions to ensure a safe Haj. Pilgrims are constantly reminded to abide by security instructions, especially in the congested areas.

An army of 37,000 people — doctors, nurses, security officials, bakers, cleaners and garbage collectors — were recruited this year by the Haj authorities for the service of the pilgrims.

A mammoth logistical exercise for the organisers, cameras installed on main roads, bridges and tunnels help monitor pilgrims’ movement to ensure that the Haj proceeds peacefully.

The annual pilgrimage brings in a lot of money for the kingdom. Saudi, the country’s international carrier, has ferried an estimated 600,000 pilgrims from 60 destinations around the world this year.

Some five million loaves of bread are baked daily at a rate of 7,000 loaves per hour, and 1.5 million blocks of ice are provided daily to the pilgrims. And as charity is an essential element of the pilgrimage, it is an occasion when wealthy Saudis distribute foodstuff, mineral water, soft drinks and offer hot meals by the truck loads to the faithful — rich and poor — from all over the world who gather at the Haj.

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