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Hundreds die of extreme heat on haj pilgrimage, reports say

Saudi state TV said temperatures rose on Monday as high as 51.8 degrees Celsius (125.2 Fahrenheit) in the shade at the Grand Mosque in Mecca.

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Hundreds of visitors have died during the annual Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca amid scorching heat, according to press reports and foreign ministries.

At least 550 people have died on haj, diplomats told French outlet Agence France Presse (AFP) on Tuesday. Three hundred and twenty-three of the dead were Egyptians, most of whom perished due to heat-related illness, AFP reported, citing two Arab diplomats.

Reuters was not able to immediately verify those numbers.

Stampedes, tent fires and other accidents have caused hundreds of deaths during haj to Saudi Arabia in the past 30 years. The pilgrimage began on Friday.

Saudi state TV said temperatures rose on Monday as high as 51.8 degrees Celsius (125.2 Fahrenheit) in the shade at the Grand Mosque in Mecca.

A 2024 study by the Journal of Travel and Medicine found that rising global temperatures may outpace strategies to deal with the heat. A 2019 study by Geophysical Research Letters said that as temperatures rise in arid Saudi Arabia due to climate change, pilgrims performing haj will face "extreme danger".

Thirty-five Tunisian citizens have died during the haj, Tunisian news agency Tunis Afrique Presse said on Tuesday.

Many of those deaths were due to extreme heat, family members said on social media, as other families continued to search for missing relatives in Saudi hospitals, Reuters reported.

The Jordanian foreign ministry said it had issued 41 burial permits for Jordanian pilgrims on Tuesday. Earlier, the ministry said at least six Jordanian citizens died of heat stroke during the haj.

Eleven Iranians have died and 24 were hospitalized during the pilgrimage, Iranian state news outlet IRINN said on Tuesday without giving the causes of death.

Three Senegalese citizens also died during haj, Agence de Presse Sénégalaise, said on Monday.

One hundred and forty-four Indonesian citizens died during the pilgrimage, Indonesian health ministry data showed on Tuesday. The data did not specify if any of the deaths were due to heat stroke.

PHYSICAL EXERTION

The haj is an annual pilgrimage that millions of Muslims make to Mecca to perform religious rites as taught by the Prophet Mohammad to his followers 14 centuries ago.

A Saudi health official, speaking to Reuters on Monday, before many of the reports of deaths were issued, said that authorities had not noticed any unusual fatalities among Muslim pilgrims amid the extremely high temperatures.

The ministry had so far treated more than 2,700 pilgrims who suffered from heat-related illness, he added.

"Haj is a difficult task, so you have to exert efforts and perform the rituals even in the conditions of heat and crowding," an Egyptian pilgrim told Reuters on Sunday.

Pilgrims used umbrellas to protect themselves from the sun, as Saudi authorities warned pilgrims to stay hydrated and avoid being outdoors during the hottest hours between 11 a.m. (0800 GMT) and 3 p.m.

Haj, one of the largest mass gatherings in the world, is a once-in-a-lifetime duty for able-bodied Muslims who can afford it. It will end on Wednesday, read the report.

More than 1.8 million pilgrims were expected to take part this year, according to the Saudi General Authority for Statistics.

 

 

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At least 18 dead in retaliatory sectarian attacks in Pakistan

The latest killings in a tribal district began on Friday night, when armed men attacked a village in the district, said the chief secretary of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

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At least 18 people were killed and 30 injured in further sectarian violence in northwestern Pakistan, officials said on Saturday, as tensions remained high following attacks on transport convoys that killed dozens of civilians this week, Reuters reported.

The latest killings in a tribal district began on Friday night, when armed men attacked a village in the district, said the chief secretary of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, Nadeem Aslam Chaudhry.

"They set on fire petrol stations and damaged properties as part of revenge," he told Reuters by phone. He said he and top police officials would be visiting the area and engage tribal elders on both sides to restore order.

The toll since Thursday is 58 dead, read the report.

AFP reported on Saturday that 32 people were killed in the latest violence, citing an unnamed official.

On Thursday unidentified gunmen opened fire on passenger vehicles, killing over 40 in the Kurrram district, where armed Shia and Sunni Muslims have engaged in tribal and sectarian rivalry for decades over a land dispute near the Afghanistan border.

Most of the dead were Shiites, officials said, sparking retaliatory attacks by armed groups, with markets and schools remaining shut in a curfew-like situation, Reuters reported.

A police official requesting anonymity told Reuters that the death toll from the fresh violence could have been higher had residents of the village that was attacked not already evacuated their homes in anticipation of more violence.

He said the residents of Bagan village, a mostly Sunni area, had already left their homes and shifted to safe places in Lower Kurram.

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Gunmen attack Pakistan passenger vehicles, killing at least 38 people

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Gunmen opened fire on passenger vehicles in a tribal area in northwestern Pakistan on Thursday, killing at least 38 people and wounding 29, the chief secretary of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, Nadeem Aslam Chaudhry, said.

Reuters reported that among the fatalities in the attack, which occurred in the Kurram tribal district, were a woman and a child, Chaudhry said, adding: “It’s a major tragedy and death toll is likely to rise."

No group claimed responsibility for the incident.

"There were two convoys of passenger vehicles, one carrying passengers from Peshawar to Parachinar and another from Parachinar to Peshawar, when armed men opened fire on them,” a local resident of Parachinar, Ziarat Hussain told Reuters by telephone, adding that his relatives were travelling from Peshawar in the convoy.

President Asif Ali Zardari, in a statement, strongly condemned the attack on passenger vehicles.

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Pakistan’s ex-PM Imran Khan gets bail in state gifts case, his party says

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A court in Pakistan granted bail to jailed former prime minister Imran Khan in a case relating to the illegal sale of state gifts, his party said on Wednesday.

Khan, 71, has been in prison since August 2023, but it was not immediately clear if the embattled politician would be released given that he faces a number of other charges too, including inciting violence against the state, Reuters reported.

"If the official order is received today, his family and supporters will approach the authorities for his release," one of his party's lawyers, Salman Safdar, told journalists. Safdar added that, as far as he knew, Khan had been granted bail or acquitted in all the cases he faced.

However, Information Minister Attaullah Tarar, a member of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz party, told Geo TV Khan lacked bail in cases in which he is charged with planning riots by his supporters in the wake of his arrest in May last year.

Khan denies any wrongdoing, and alleges all the cases registered against him since he was removed from power in 2022 are politically motivated to keep him in jail.

The case in which he was granted bail on Wednesday by the Islamabad High Court is known as the Toshakhana, or state treasury case.

It has multiple versions and charges all revolving around allegations that Khan and his wife illegally procured and then sold gifts worth over 140 million rupees ($501,000) in state possession, which he received during his 2018-22 premiership.

Khan and his wife, Bushra Bibi, were both handed a 14-year sentence on those charges, following a three-year sentence handed to him in late 2023 in another version of the same case.

Their sentences have been suspended in appeals at the high court.

The gifts included diamond jewellery and seven watches, six of them Rolexes - the most expensive being valued at 85 million rupees ($305,000).

Khan's wife was released last month after being in the same prison as Khan for months.

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