Three South Africans died in the city of Madinah before performing Hajj, while the remaining two passed on while undertaking it.
Muslim pilgrims use umbrellas to shade themselves from the sun as they arrive at the base of Mount Arafat.
During Hajj, pilgrims sometimes visit Medina, the city of Prophet Muhammad before going to Makkah before the start of Hajj.“We had asked our consulate general in Jeddah for a report, and although there were five persons from South Africa who undertook to go to Hajj had passed on, all those that had passed on are people that died out of illness, not as a result of the heatwave,” Suliman said.
Most of those making the pilgrimage did not have permits and were left exposed to the scorching elements. On Friday, a senior Saudi official gave AFP a partial toll of 577 deaths for the two busiest days of Hajj: 15 June, when pilgrims gathered for hours of prayers in the blazing sun on Mount Arafat, and 16 June, when they participated in the “stoning of the devil” ritual in Mina.Temperatures in Mecca this year climbed as high as 51.8 degrees Celsius according to Saudi Arabia’s National Center for Meteorology.
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