…Saudi in the eyes of the storm

Tragedy is part of human existence. The twin accidents that occurred during the last Hajj exercise may, however, prove too bitter a pill for the Muslim world, in general, and Saudi Arabia authority, in particular, to swallow. This is even as global search is ongoing for a tragedy-free pilgrimage.

In all, the two host cities to Islamic holiest mosques: Makkah and Madina, welcome into their folds at least eight million pilgrims every year, which include average one million monthly trip for the ummrah (lesser hajj) and over two million for the yearly Hajj exercise. The population of pilgrims for the lesser hajj is particularly high during the month of Ramadhan, at times surpassing the figure for the main Hajj. Conscious of the task, the Saudi government has increasingly adopted one reform after the other with the aim of avoiding such calamity as witnessed during last exercise, where over 1,200 lives were lost to crane accident inside the Grand Mosque (masjid al-Haram) on September 11, as well as, September 24 Stampede, which occurred near Mina at the intersection of streets 204 and 223 leading up to Jamaraat Bridge, where the symbolic rite of ‘Stoning the Devil’ is observed.

The management of Hajj and the two holy mosques and other sanctities in Saudi Arabia is assumed to be the responsibility of the Muslims worldwide, and not necessarily the exclusive reserve of the Al-Saud royal family. Incidentally, there are strong indications that the Saudi government appears to have always been gravitating towards this realisation.

Yet, there are growing concerns that Muslims of all nations should be more involved in the management of the hajj operations for effective coordination, welfare and safety of pilgrims. This feeling may have been reinforced, especially, as the Saudi government gets increasingly involved in regional power play in the Middle East. It is presently involved militarily in Yemen, Bahrain, Iraq and Syria. Such an expedition may have tasked the security system available to maintain hitch free hajj.

While the pilgrimage might not necessarily be the world’s largest gathering of people, Hindu used to be the largest religious gathering before it was overtaken recently by Arbaeen in Karbala. But the Muslim pilgrimage could be the world’s most challenging assembly. The demographical representation of the hajj exercise could pose a serious challenge to even the most organised system. Hardly any country in the world without a representative in Saudi at every given hajj period. That Saudi Arabia plays host to the entire world during each exercise goes without much debate.

Against this backdrop of global representation, the Saudi authorities may have to accede to calls for a more global participation in organisation of the exercise, even as it traditionally struggles to brush off the psychedelic reactions of the Iranian government each time hajj tragedy rears its unfortunate head. On its part, the Nigerian government has demanded participation in the investigation of the Jamaraat incident, where scores of pilgrims from Nigeria lost their lives.

The 111 victims of the crane collapse were of 12 different nationalities, with the highest contingents of fatalities being 25 Bangladeshis and 23 Egyptians. Of the injured, the most represented nationalities were 51 Pakistanis and 42 Indonesians. The accident has been cited as the deadliest crane collapse in modern history, beating the previous record held by the collapse of a construction crane in New York in 2008, which killed seven people.

The Jamaraat Stampede was even more globally represented. The incident is the deadliest accident to occur during Hajj since the 1990 disaster that killed 1,426 people.

According to various reports, Iran recorded about 239 dead, 241 missing; Egypt: 78 dead; Nigeria: 64 dead, 244 missing; Indonesia: 57 dead, 78 missing; Mali: 53 dead, 129 missing; India: 45 dead; Pakistan: 40 dead, more than 60 missing; Niger: 22 dead; Cameroon: at least 20 dead; Ivory Coast: 14 dead, 77 missing; Chad: 11 dead; Algeria: 9 dead; Somalia: eight dead; Senegal: seven dead, 52 missing; Morocco: five dead, 34 missing; Libya: four dead, 16 missing; Tanzania: four dead; Kenya: three dead; Tunisia: two dead; Burkina Faso: one dead; Burundi: one dead; Netherlands: one dead; Benin: unspecified number of deaths.

Dispute over the cause of the tragedy is, however, still raging. Iran, with the highest number of victims, strongly criticised Saudi Arabia government for allegedly mishandling the yearly ritual and threatened to press the case against Saudi rulers in international courts. Obviously, the incident may have inflamed the fragile sectarian tensions between largely Sunni dominated Saudi Arabia and rival Shia dominated Iran, which were already creating waves of wider turmoil in the Middle East. The raging Syrian war and the Yemeni crisis are pointer.

According to the Saudi Health Ministry, the death toll for the incident in Jamaraat remains under 800 people, with about 1000 pilgrims sustaining varying degrees of injuries. The official statement claims that the stampede occurred as two waves of pilgrims converged on a narrow road, causing hundreds of people to suffocate or be trampled to death. Others, particularly the Iranian government, alleged that the huge number of motorcades of guests contributed largely to the trampling of the pilgrims, but the Saudi Arabia authority denied the allegation.

A statement by spokesman for the Ministry of Interior, Major General Mansour Al-Turki, stated that, “motorcades of guests of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and other dignitaries do not pass through the area in question and that these reports are unfounded.”

But other accounts may have contradicted the Saudi government’s claims. For example, Lebanon-based Arabic-language daily, Ad-Diyar, alleged that the convoy escorting Saudi Prince Mohammed bin-Salman Al-Saud, comprising 200 soldiers and 150 police officers, played a central role in the incident, by making some pilgrims turn around against the flow, which triggered a stampede.

Kebbi State deputy governor, Alhaji Samaila Yombe, who was present at the incident, confirmed that the deaths happened due to a blockage of the route to Jamaraat Bridge. “What actually happened was that all the pilgrims scheduled to throw Jamaraat at that time were channeled to one particular street.

At a time we got to a certain point around 8:00am, a military vehicle was set across to create a barrier and then some of the Saudi soldiers were standing by, suggesting that you cannot go beyond that point. About 5,000 people coming from the same direction were not aware of the roadblock in front, which resulted to a tight and stationary human traffic, which made it very difficult for us to even stand. So, we continued to squat to make room for fresh air while the temperature was about 47 degrees Celsius.
“Pilgrims, in efforts to get fresh air, attempted to scale fences of tents on both sides of the road. Very few succeeded, while most people just succumb to the situation. It was at this juncture that we saw dead bodies piling up around us.”

On Wednesday, Iranian Javan Daily News released a report criticising the Saudi authorities over the secrecy surrounding the details of the disaster. The report alleged that Saudi authorities tried to bury the unidentified bodies of victims. It also referred to eyewitnesses claims that Saudi soldiers had seized the mobile phones of pilgrims who had used them to record videos of the disaster. In a purported poll conducted by the organisation among Iranian nationals between September 27-30, 64 percent of respondents insisted that the Jamaraat incident was “intentional,” while 28 percent related the incident to the “mismanagement and incompetence” of Saudi government. Only 8 percent of respondent agreed that it is simply “an accident.”

But the spokesman of the Ministry of Interior Mansour Al-Turki, offering that an investigation was ongoing, that the exact causes for crowding that led to the deadly stampede are yet to be ascertained, explained that “Street number 204 is a road leading from the camps to the Jamaraat Bridge. What happened was that a group of pilgrims on buses were allowed to descend onto the pathways that lead to the Jamaraat Bridge at a time that wasn’t allocated to them.”

According to the Al Arabiya News Channel in Mina, “As they (pilgrims) neared the area, they converged with an existing group of people who were already in the area, which pushed the area to over capacity.” The interior ministry, however, stressed that, contrary to claims of presence of the Saudi prince in the area, most diplomatic convoys take place in the south of Mina and in underground tunnels, while the incident took place in the north. He pointed out that most controversial news regarding the unfortunate incident are from sources at conflict with the Saudi government.

Also, one scientific-based study explains the causes of such stampedes by using systematic review of computer models. According to this study, crowds are of two types: physical crowds (where people are simply in one place) and psychological crowds (where people in a physical crowd share a common self-definition – a social identity). A group of people at an event may all see themselves and each other as Muslims, Manchester United supporters, or music lovers, for example. This shared identity affects the behaviour of the crowd and is therefore imperative for understanding and predicting the crowd movements, including flow and congestion.

Recent research, according to Wikipedia sources, has shown that feelings of group identity may mean psychological crowds are easier for their members to cope with even if they are tightly packed or very slow moving because they feel safe within the group. “But when there are several psychological crowds within the same physical space they can inadvertently limit the movement of one another. In a recent (unpublished) study we found that people in one psychological crowd walk more closely together, walk more slowly and walk further distances to stay together than people who are just in physical crowds. Those outside the psychological crowd did not try to walk through it but instead walked around it.”

As the world is yet to hear the last of the Hajj 2015 disasters, an unimpressed President Muhammadu Buhari ordered Nigeria’s Hajj management agency, the National Hajj Commission (NAHCON) and the Nigerian Embassy in Saudi Arabia to urgently account for all Nigerian pilgrims in the last exercise. The President tasked the Commission to work with the various state pilgrim boards, Islamic organisations and private travel agencies involved in Hajj operations to speedily provide a confirmed and verifiable report on the status of every Nigerian pilgrim in Saudi Arabia.

He also directed NAHCON, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Nigerian Embassy in Saudi Arabia to give all necessary assistance to Nigerians who are still receiving treatment for injuries suffered during the melee.

At present, the Hajj Commission has put the numbers of Nigerians, who died in the stampede, at 64, while about 244 pigrims remain missing.

NAHCON Chairman, Alhaji Abdullahi Mukhtar, has said the dead are from Bauchi, Borno, Cross Rivers, Jigawa, Kano, Katsina, Kebbi, Nasarawa, Niger, Ogun, Ondo, Sokoto, Taraba, Yobe and Zamfara states.

In addition to two committees set up by the commission to oversee the burial arrangements, another panel to be headed by the Comptroller General of Nigeria Immigration will collect information from survivors and witnesses on the causes of the stampede.

But local reactions have also not been in short supply: The Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC) while mourning the death of Professor Tijani Elmiskin and Bilkisu Yusuf in the stampede, the group affirmed that officials of the National Hajj Commission performed their duties as expected of them. “The airlift from Nigeria to Saudi Arabia was hitch-free and the two tragedies. which occurred in Saudi this year can only be blamed on situations beyond NAHCON’s control.

But, “As eyewitnesses of the gory stampede incident, we testify that it was caused by security breakdown on the part of the Saudi authorities. We left Muzdalifah for Mina around 6am on that fateful day. We branched at the NAHCON camp to drop our personal effects and headed straight to the Jamaraat, which were less than three kilometers away.

To our surprise, the road was blocked by Egyptian pilgrims who had cast their own stones and were returning to their camp. Instead of taking the route designated for returning pilgrims, they stubbornly took the route meant for those who were going. The road became narrow and movement became difficult. The atmosphere became charged and even breathing and visibility were affected. The few policemen who were around desperately threw water at us to save us from collapsing. It became glaring to us at that moment that a monumental stampede was just around the corner.

The Saudi authorities, therefore, lied when they tried to put the blame squarely on African pilgrims. The stampede would not have occurred at all if Saudi security agents had disallowed pilgrims returning from the Jamaraat from taking the same route on their way back. The practice over the years have always been to take a detour but this was not enforced on the fateful Thursday. The fact that the road to the same Jamaraat became very free and safe yesterday (Friday, September 25) and this morning (Saturday, September 26) when Saudi security agents strictly enforced the rules by disallowing returning pilgrims to use the same route as those going proves that our hypothesis is correct.

According to the group, headed by Prof Ishaq Akintola, “This is criminal negligence and the Saudi authorities must be held accountable. We urge the Nigerian government to support NAHCON’s stand on this. Nigeria must demand compensation from the Saudis for families of the bereaved. We should also task the Saudis to involve the world Muslim Ummaah in the planning and implementation of the annual hajj exercise in view of the emerging scenario of complacency on the part of the Saudi authorities.”

However, away from lives lost to the crane and stampede incidents, the Head of Data Unit of the National Hajj Commission of Nigeria’s Medical Centre in Mecca, Dr. Jibrin Suleiman, confirmed that 19 Nigerian pilgrims died of heart diseases, hypertension, diabetes and other related ailments during the exercise.

According to him, more than 10,000 pilgrims were treated in NAHCON’s five clinics in Madinah and Makkah for cold, malaria, body pain and other simple and non-complicated cases.

On its part the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) called for a thorough investigation into the two major fatal incidents. The NLC President, Ayuba Wabba, said: “In order for transparency and re-assurance, we urge that countries whose citizens perished in the two incidents be made members of the body of inquiry.
“But most importantly, perhaps, time has come for the Saudi authorities to review their crowd control management techniques and administration of the Hajj generally,” he said.

Wabba acknowledged that managing a mammoth crowd, sometimes in excess of two million people during every yearly pilgrimage, was no mean a task, for which the Saudi authorities deserved commendation.

The NLC President, however, noted with over 1,200 deaths, including those who died in the crane collapse, the 2015 Hajj ranked among the most eventful in recorded history of the exercise.
“We are shocked and completely at a loss by the extent of the losses this year. That is why we are calling for a thorough investigation of the two major incidents that led to these deaths,” he said.

As for the Nasrul-Lahi-Fathi society (NASFAT), which strongly supported the call by various stakeholders for a probe into the immediate and remote causes of the tragedy, the Saudi authority must hasten to put up all measures that will remove dread from the observance of pilgrimage.

According to the group’s president, Alhaji Kamil Yomi Bolarinwa: “We believe people should be held accountable; but the overall objective should be the entrenchment of a system that will, in the future, remove such failings, human and infrastructural from subsequent Hajj operations.
“However, while the investigation by the Saudi authorities is going on, we enjoin the Ummaah to avoid any comments capable of undermining the unity of Islam. This is a time to remain steadfast and prayerful, a time to totally submit, as true Muslims, to the will of Allah. A time for strengthening of our faith.”

Bolarinwa also called on the Saudi authorities to spare no effort in providing adequate medical care for all those who sustained varying degrees of injuries during the stampede, and urge them to intensify effort in the search for all missing pilgrims.