Saudi Blamed for Stampede Tragedy
“They don't have a clue how to engage with these people,” Irfan al-Alawi, co-founder of the Makkah-based Islamic Heritage Research Foundation, told Agence France Presse (AFP) on Friday, September 25.
“There's no crowd control.”
Mohammed Jafari, an adviser to Hajj and Umrah Travel, the first hajj tour operator in the UK, sail the road closures were a contributory factor to the crush.
“The Saudis say after every disaster ‘it is God’s will’. It is not God’s will – it is man’s incompetence," Jafari said.
"Talking to pilgrims on the ground yesterday, the main reason for this accident was that the king, in his palace in Mina, was receiving dignitaries and for this reason they closed two entrances to where the stoning happened ... these were the two roads where people were not able to proceed.
“You have a stream of people going in and if you stop that stream, and the population builds up, eventually there is going to be an accident.
“It is the fault of the Saudi government because any time a prince comes along, they close the roads, they don’t think about the disaster waiting to happen.”
The Indonesian president, Joko Widodo, who leads the world’s most populous Muslim nation, said “there must be improvements in the management of the hajj so that this incident is not repeated”.
The disaster came as the world's 1.5 billion Muslims marked `Eid al-Adha, the Feast of Sacrifice, the most important holiday on the Islamic calendar.
