Cabay Media Staff Writer:-

At least 717 people have died and hundreds more are injured after a stampede on the edge of Mecca, Saudi authorities confirmed.

Civil defence officials said more than 800 were also injured in the crush at Mina, on the outskirts of the Muslim holy city, where some two million people are at the annual pilgrimage.

Some 4,000 rescue workers and 220 ambulances are involved in the emergency operation, officials said. Pictures on social media showed a devastating scene, with dozens of bodies lying among water bottles and crushed wheelchairs.

Mina is where pilgrims go to carry out a symbolic stoning of the devil by throwing pebbles against stone walls.

Witnesses said the stampede happened on Street 204, one of the main roads leading through the camp set up for pilgrims to get to the three stone walls, known as Jamarat. More than 160,000 tents are set up in the area.

An unnamed pilgrim from Somaliland said he had been planning to perform the stoning ritual in the afternoon but was too frightened to do so as the route was heaving with pilgrims and the  crowd seemed out of control.

“I am very tired already and after this I can’t go. I will wait for the night and if it not resolved, I will see if maybe somebody else can do it on my behalf,” he said.

More than a thousand Somalilanders and Somalis from the Horn of Africa and abroad are reported taking part of this year’s Hajj and there is a fear that they might be among the dead pilgrimages.

Somaliland’s religious affairs minister, Sheikh Khalil Abdillahi Ahmed who is leading a group of pilgrims from Somaliland and spoke to one of the state owned TV reporters over the phone while in Mecca sounded like he fears of Somalilanders being among the dead pilgrims that died in the Hajj’s worst stampede.

There is is no official confirmation of the nationalities of the people died on Street 204 where stampede took place.

The deaths come on the first day of Eid, traditionally the most hazardous day of the Hajj because so many people are trying to perform rituals at the same time.

It also comes less than two weeks after a giant crane crashed down on the Grand Mosque in Mecca, the site which is the focal point for the pilgrimage. At least three Somalilanders were reported died or injured the crane crashed.

At least 111 people died then and more than 390 were injured.

Every year Somalilanders are reported of being among the Hajj casualties.

The death toll this year stands more than a thousand dead pilgrims, including those who died after a crane crashed when it gave away in heavy storm that hit the holy city of Mecca in the first two weeks of September.

The last time so many people died at the Hajj was in 2006 when at least 346 pilgrims were killed in a stampede in the same area.

The pilgrimage lasts for five days.

It is a religious duty for able-bodied Muslims to complete the Hajj at least once in their lifetime and take part in the rituals intended to cleanse their souls and promote the brotherhood and sisterhood of Islam.

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