Iranian death toll in hajj stampede raised to 464
Print Edition
Iran yesterday nearly doubled its death toll from the hajj stampede to 464, giving up hope of finding missing pilgrims alive after a tragedy that has sparked a major row with Saudi Arabia.
After Iran threatened a “fierce” response to delays repatriating its dead, Tehran and Riyadh reached an agreement to speed up the return of the bodies of Iranian victims.
Tehran has accused regional rival Saudi Arabia of hindering its efforts to bring home the bodies. The Islamic republic has the highest confirmed death toll among foreign nationalities by far, accounting for more than half of the 769 killed, followed by Egypt with 75.
“Seven days after this tragic accident ... the status of all (pilgrims) injured has been completely cleared and reported,” Iran’s hajj organization said in a statement yesterday carried by state television.
Around 240 Iranians were previously declared dead after the crush on September 24 near Mecca, with more than 200 classified as missing.
Iran’s IRNA news agency quoted Health Minister Hassan Hashemi as saying that he and his Saudi counterpart Khaled al-Falih had agreed to “speed up the repatriation process.”
“We were assured that no Iranian would be buried (in Saudi Arabia) without the permission of the government and their relatives,” he said.
Those unidentified bodies who are clearly Iranian would be repatriated first and identified at home, Hashemi added.
“Saudi officials are failing to do their duties,” Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in a speech on Wednesday to graduating navy officers.
“They should know that the slightest disrespect towards tens of thousands of Iranian pilgrims in Mecca and Medina and not fulfilling their obligation to transfer holy bodies will get a tough and fierce reaction.”
The disaster has fed into the bitter regional rivalry between the Sunni Saudi Arabia and the Shiite Iran, which back opposite sides in the wars in Syria and Yemen.
Among the Iranian dead was Ghazanfar Roknabadi, a former ambassador to Lebanon believed to be close to Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guard.
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