Riyadh holds pilgrims lack of calm responsible for Mona incident

Saudi Arabia has defended its organization of al-Haj season for this year and said that the incident of stampede at al-Jamarat bridge which claimed the life of 251 pilgrims could have been avoided, had the pilgrims been organized and not agitated.

The Saudi minister of the interior, Prince Nayef Bin Abdul Aziz, who presides over the higher al-Haj committee attributed the incident to the existence of a large number of pilgrims in Mona, and this resulted in the collapse of one of them as a result of fatigue, and this lead to the collapse of others.

He added "it is hoped that our brothers, the pilgrims, would be calmer." The Saudi minister of communications Muhammad Jamil Bin Ahmad Mulla said that the Saudi telecommunications company invested some 550 million Saudi Riyals ( USD 146.66 million) in the telecommunication network for serving pilgrims who tolled 2 million.

He said in a statement issued yesterday by the Saudi daily Riyadh that land telephone services reached 26,250 lines with and increase of 1200 lines. He said that the number of international calls made from the pilgrims areas increased to 1.5 million telephone call from 1.4 million in 2003 because of the increased facilities.