113 of al-Haj stampede victims buried in Saudi Arabia

A statement released by the Saudi Health Ministry and published by the Saudi daily al-Jazira on Thursday said that some 113 of the pilgrims who were killed in the stampede incident on Mena, 10 Km east of Mecca on April 9 including 58 women were buried In Saudi Arabia.

He elaborated that among the killed 113 who were identified, there were 31 Indians, 16 Pakistanis, 10 Turks. 8 Syrians, Algerians, and Nigerians, and five Saudis. He added other killed pilgrims are from Indonesia, South Africa, the US, Morocco, Iran, Jordan, Egypt, Oman Kuwait, Palestine, Sudan, Bangladesh, Libya, Somalia and Yemen, Al-Nahar reported.

Saudi official statistics said that 118 persons were killed in the stampede, but the Saudi Haj minister Mahmoud Bin Muhammad Safar said the number of deaths is higher. He attributed the stampede incident to "the lack of awareness and bad adherence to set instructions."