18 BD pilgrims killed in Mina: Haab

Staff Correspondent: At least 18 Bangladeshi pilgrims have been killed in trampling and 90 others are missing in Mina of Saudi Arabia during Hajj 2015.

President of Hajj Agencies Association of Bangladesh (Haab), Ibrahim Bahar, has confirmed this to risingbd.com, this afternoon.

Dr Md Borhabnuddin, Joint-Secretary of the Ministry of Religious Affairs, however has said that least 10 Bangladeshi pilgrims have been killed in trampling and 98 others are missing in Mina of Saudi Arabia during Hajj 2015.

Three of them were identified, Borhabnuddin added.

Earlier the Saudi Health Minister Khalid Al-Falih on Saturday said the number of pilgrims who died in Thursday’s stampede in Mina has risen to 769.

Al-Falih said the number of injured has also jumped to 934, of which many are still confined in hospitals.

“The latest statistics up to this hour reveal 769 dead. That is an increase of 52 on the previous figures,” he told a press conference. “Those are the ones who died in various hospitals since the event,” he said.

Thursday’s stampede is the second worst in a number of tragedies to strike the pilgrimage, surpassed only by that of July 2, 1990, when 1,426 pilgrims, mainly from Asia, died during a stampede in a tunnel at Mina after a ventilation system failure.

risingbd/ DHAKA/ Sept 28, 2015/ Hasan Mahmud/ Nasir/ Mahfuz