Posted on 09/24/2015 4:08:14 AM PDT by ilovesarah2012
(CNN) —A stampede during one of the last rituals of the Hajj season -- the annual Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca -- has killed more than 300 people and injured 450 others in Saudi Arabia.
The stampede occurred Thursday during the ritual known as "stoning the devil" in the tent city of Mina, about 2 miles from Mecca, Islam's holiest city.
Hundreds have been killed in past years during the same ceremony.
"We have a stampede accident in Mina, and civil defense is dealing with it," said Brig. Gen. Mansour al-Turki, an Interior Ministry spokesman.
The ministry said the latest death toll is 310, but the numbers have been climbing steadily. Officials deployed 4,000 workers and 220 ambulances and other vehicles to Mina to help with the disaster.
In the ritual, crowds of pilgrims throw stones at three pillars, in a re-enactment of an event when the Prophet Abraham stoned the devil and rejected his temptations, according to Muslim traditions.
The ceremony was the scene of stampedes and hundreds of deaths in the 1980s and 1990s as pilgrims passed a crowded bottleneck area leading to the small pillars on the ground.
In 2006, a stampede there killed at least 363 people.
(Excerpt) Read more at kmbc.com ...
This isn’t the first, or the worst, such incident during the hajj. And yet no one with any authority or responsibility to prevent these mass death stampedes, ever does.
In what other religion would this be considered acceptable?
Muslims kill more muslims than they do infidels.
I know. It’s worse than soccer matches.
Hey mod. I made the same comment. Why is this still up?
Nevermind. I see you took care of it.
...Hundreds have been killed in past years during the same ceremony...
Did someone shout, “Look out, there’s a Pig ahead?”
Stoning the devil. Stampeding the devil's followers.
Chromosomes missing... not fully evolved
Some good news for a change
“Gosh, who could have seen that coming?”
The Who
Compared to the usual death toll during the Haj, the casualties from that Who concert barely amount to a rounding error.
I have read several books on Saudi Arabia in the last 2 months and it is a common occurrence just like the article says.
A breaking news tweet cites the death toll as now being 453 according to the Associated Press......
I know. We hear it a lot.
More likely, “I think that goat is in heat!”
Death toll is up to 453.
The Koran specifically states that a person who dies during the Hajj is especially blessed and immediately transported to Paradise. A lot of older Muslims, especially women, are hoping to die on the Hajj. This is why the authorities do not stop it.
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