The Egyptian government has said it plans to prosecute travel agencies for “fraud” following the deaths of more than 1,100 people taking part in the Hajj pilgrimage over the weekend.
Egyptian Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly on Saturday revoked the licenses of 16 tourism companies for conducting illegal pilgrimages to Mecca and ordered their managers to be prosecuted before public authorities, the cabinet announced.
An AFP tally published on Friday, collating official statements and reports from diplomats responding to the tragedy, put the death toll at a staggering 1,126, with more than half of the victims being Egyptian.
Arab diplomats said earlier this week that 658 of the dead were Egyptian nationals, including 630 unregistered pilgrims.
President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi has ordered an investigation into the deaths of the Egyptian pilgrims by a “crisis room” headed by Madbouly.
The Egyptian government has ordered the revocation of licenses for 16 travel agencies after 1,100 people died during the Hajj pilgrimage over the weekend. Muslim pilgrims were forced to use umbrellas to protect themselves from the scorching sun. Members of a medical team evacuate Muslim pilgrims caught in the scorching sun at the foot of Mount Arafat, also known as Jabal al-Rahma (Mount of Mercy), during the annual Hajj pilgrimage on June 15, 2024.
“The prime minister has ordered the cancellation of the licenses of these companies, the referral of their managers to prosecutors and the imposition of fines for the families of the pilgrims who died as a result of these companies,” a cabinet statement said.
This horrific death toll was allegedly partly due to some “fraudulent” companies “organizing Hajj programs using individual visitor visas, preventing visa holders from entering Mecca.”
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The government said more than 500,000 Egyptians had made the official pilgrimage to the holy sites and that “31 people died from chronic illnesses.”
The travel agencies accused of arranging the unauthorised Hajj visits are said to have failed to provide proper services and “caused the unregistered pilgrims to become exhausted due to high temperatures”.
“All (Egyptians) died from the heat except for one, who was fatally injured after being crushed by the crowd,” a diplomat said on Tuesday.
The Hajj is one of the five major acts of Islam, and every Muslim who can afford it must complete it at least once.
Hajj permits are allocated to each country through a quota system and then distributed to individuals through a lottery system.
Tens of thousands of pilgrims each year attempt to perform the Hajj through unofficial routes due to the high cost of obtaining official Hajj visas.
A large group of Muslim pilgrims arrive to perform the symbolic “stoning of the devil” ritual during the annual Hajj pilgrimage in Mina on June 16, 2024. Muslim pilgrims gather at the top of a rocky mountain known as the Mount of Mercy in the Arafat Plains near the Saudi holy city of Mecca during the annual Hajj pilgrimage. “All (Egyptians) died from the heat except for one, who was fatally injured in a small jostle in the crowd,” a diplomat said Tuesday.
This puts these unofficial pilgrims at risk as they will not have access to the air-conditioned facilities provided by Saudi Arabian authorities along the Hajj route.
This “scam” route, which can save pilgrims thousands of pounds, has become increasingly popular since 2019, when Saudi Arabia introduced a general tourist visa to ease entry into the Gulf kingdom.
A senior Saudi official said the government had confirmed 577 deaths during the two busiest days of the Hajj – when pilgrims gathered for hours to pray under the scorching sun on Mount Arafat on Saturday and took part in a “stoning of the devil” ritual in Mina on Sunday.
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“This happened in difficult weather conditions and extremely harsh temperatures,” the official said, acknowledging that the 577 figure was a partial figure and did not cover the entire Hajj, which officially ended on Wednesday.
A Saudi Arabian study published last month said the pilgrimage is increasingly affected by climate change, with temperatures in the areas where the rites are held rising by 0.4 degrees Celsius (0.72 F) every decade.
Temperatures at Mecca’s Grand Mosque reached 51.8 degrees Celsius (125 degrees Fahrenheit) on Monday, according to the Saudi Arabian National Meteorological Center.
The Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced on the same day that it would cooperate with Saudi Arabian authorities in the search for Egyptians who went missing during the Hajj.
The tragic incident occurred after a travel agency sold fake Hajj travel packages to Muslim customers, then lost thousands of pounds when they cancelled at the last minute, a court heard in January.
Hasib Chowdhury, 50, is accused of “making false representations” to customers at a branch of Zamana Travels in Yardley by taking payments without booking flights, accommodation or applying for visas.
Mark Jackson, prosecuting for Birmingham City Council’s Trading Standards office, said: “In July 2017 officers from Trading Standards visited the business and spoke to the defendant. The defendant told staff that he was no longer trading as a travel agent. We allege that the defendant was not honest with staff.”
He told the court that analysis of his “several” bank accounts showed he had received various sums from customers in December that year, including £3,000 and £2,000.
Mr Jackson continued: “He took thousands of pounds from people, provided them with no services, no flights, no hotels, nothing, and kept their cash for himself.”
“Some of them got their money back bit by bit after he appeared in court.”
