About 200 mostly elderly Indonesian pilgrims passed away during their Haj pilgrimages, jolting the Indonesian officials once again to find out solution to an ever-increasing number of deaths reported every year especially among Indonesian pilgrims.
Source: Arab News
- The final death count has yet to be determined. The death toll is likely to increase once a final accounting has taken place. Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim country, sent 208,000 Muslims to perform Haj this year.
- “The deaths were mainly related to heart disease, respiratory failures, liver failure, hypertension, heart attacks and suffocation because of crowds and congestion with most of the deaths (being persons) aged above 55 years old,” said Budiarto Kurniawan, the spokesman of the Indonesian Embassy.
- In order to solve the problems of overcrowding and congestion, the Indonesian government has signed a memorandum of understanding with Saudi Arabia to construct an apartment block near the Grand Mosque in Makkah for its pilgrims. This new step is part of an effort to solve the accommodation problems that have plagued worshippers in the last few years, said another Indonesian official. He said that the construction of the news apartment would be completed by 2012.
- This new apartment is expected to be able to host up to 100,000 Indonesian pilgrims. The new apartment will be located 1.8 kilometers from the Grand Mosque, which will be of great help for elderly pilgrims. It has been estimated that 35 percent of this year’s 208,000 Indonesian.
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