More than 1,300 people have died in Saudi Arabia during this year’s Hajj, the annual pilgrimage to Islam’s holiest sites, as brutal temperatures hit the Gulf region.
The kingdom of Saudi Arabia has always had hot summers, but temperatures reached 125 degrees Fahrenheit during this year’s pilgrimage, conditions that could become routine for the country as it grapples with the effects of climate change. This reality raises the question of how the state can mitigate extreme heat to limit Hajj deaths in future – and possibly even hotter – years.
This year’s tragic deaths were caused by the heat, but exacerbated by a visa system many try to avoid.
For Muslims, the Hajj is one of the five most sacred professions of the faith, and many followers consider the pilgrimage to Mecca, the birthplace of the Prophet Muhammad, to be something all believers can do. To control the flow of Muslims wishing to complete the pilgrimage, Saudi Arabia limits the number of Hajj visas each year.
To meet that requirement, some companies offer pilgrims tourist visas to Saudi Arabia that don’t include permission to perform the hajj — or accommodation at holy sites where people can seek refuge from the heat. Left with no official aid or oversight, many of these unauthorized pilgrims suffered from exposure – and according to Saudi authorities they made up the largest proportion of the dead.
How Saudi Arabia will manage these pilgrims, and the impending extreme temperatures, is not clear in the future; However, if the government does not do so, a large number of people may die.
What is Hajj?
Hajj is a visit to multiple holy sites in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, where the Prophet Muhammad was born. During the Hajj, Muslims visit the Kaaba, a shrine within the Great Mosque that they circumambulate seven times. Over the course of five days, they also visited other sites outside of Mecca, including Mount Ararat, the site of Muhammad’s last sermon according to tradition.
This journey is very expensive, running anywhere in between $3,000 and $17,000 depends on The package they choose and their country (Some countries, such as Indonesia, subsidize parts of Hajj travel). It requires a special visa that is obtained ahead of time A government portal — where people can also choose their Hajj packages, which include accommodation, transport and even add-ons like SIM cards and additional tours.
It is assumed Thousands of pilgrims Complete Hajj through alternative methods every year unable to access official visas.
Why was this year so deadly?
Many pilgrims come to the state under tourist visas, which technically do not allow entry to Hajj sites. Although these pilgrims are allowed into Saudi Arabia and visit Hajj sites without official documents, those sites are not set up to accommodate them. This means that there is no air-conditioned transport to and from their sites, or government-reserved air-conditioned accommodation where they can rest or escape the heat. According to government officials, Of these, 141,000 are unauthorized pilgrims Was treated for heatstroke. There are many more Believed to be suffering without treatment.
Muslims from poor countries are the most likely to arrive without the necessary housing — and the most likely to suffer heat-related injuries and deaths, especially as travel becomes increasingly expensive. “It’s beyond the reach of so many pilgrims from Egypt, Bangladesh and Morocco and other countries, even though they save a lifetime to come,” said Madawi Al-Rashid, visiting professor at the London School of Economics’ Middle East Center. told Bloomberg.
All told, the government says it has been treated About half a million 1.8 million people who performed Hajj this year faced heat-related conditions.
This year’s Hajj is not the deadliest on record. An estimated 2,400 people were killed in a stampede in 2015, although the Saudi government put the number much lower, at 769. Royal family, eg The New York Times As reported later, Hajj oversight has been accused of neglect and mismanagement — primarily by regional rival Iran, which has lost hundreds of citizens in the stampede — but has implemented massive infrastructure projects over the years to help ease the Hajj. Alarming and Bloomberg reports that heat has also caused other mass killings in 1985, when 1,012 people died in 129-degree temperatures. And from 2002 to 2015, more than 90,000 pilgrims died on the Hajj or Umrah, another pilgrimage to Mecca that is not required to be performed during the Hajj.
Islam works according to the lunar calendar, so the timing of holy periods like the Hajj varies from year to year. Next year, for example, it will come in early June – which could mean still high heat. But Hajj often does not take place in hot summer, so travelers may not be exposed to these dangerous conditions for the next few years. However, it also means that the temperature during the next Hajj period may be higher than this year.
Is anything being done to make these events safer?
Until now, many governments have been holding travel brokers responsible for bringing pilgrims without proper travel arrangements and visas to safely perform Hajj in Saudi Arabia. Egyptian brokers have come under special scrutiny: Of the 650 Egyptians who died during the Hajj, 638 were so-called unregistered pilgrims. Already the Egyptian government 16 travel brokers have been approvedTake away their licenses and recommend them for prosecution.
Figuring out how to prevent such unauthorized visits will be important for Saudi Arabia in the long term, especially as it continues its ongoing tourism push; According to BloombergThe tourism industry plans to add 200,000 new hotel rooms in the state over the next two years and expects to have 150 million tourists by 2030.
But another significant concern is climate change – and Gulf countries, including Saudi Arabia, are particularly at risk. Regional temperatures are already significantly higher than the global average, and most of the population of the Gulf countries will be exposed to extreme heat by 2070 – even if global temperatures rise by just 1.5°C per global climate target.
The government has tried to mitigate some of the risks of conducting Hajj in such weather, including texting pilgrims not to go out during the hottest part of the day; misting and fanning walkways; and providing free water, in addition to training medical responders to deal with heat-induced illness. But that’s just not enough; Improved medical infrastructure, flexible or fixed schedule for conducting various events; And more shade or pavilions for worshipers are some simple ways that the state can solve the problem.
The most effective way to ensure that heat deaths are reduced, however, must come through policy changes. Although the government says it has turned away 155,000 people who do not have proper Hajj visas this year, roughly that number have managed to circumvent the system and suffer some form of heatstroke. States will need a better system to reduce the number of unauthorized pilgrims – which could include subsidizing the journey or encouraging other governments to do so, or Changing the Hajj calendar and otherwise improving the infrastructure.
And although Saudi Arabia has pledged to attack the root of the problem by achieving net zero carbon emissions by 2050, it remains one of the world’s largest oil producers. And although the state is diversifying its economy, it remains heavily dependent on oil and seems intent on doing so To stay like this in the future. And that — along with the relative inaction of other big polluting countries — suggests it needs to reckon with extreme heat and find ways to avoid needless deaths in future years.
