The Mystery of the High Number of Iranian Victims in the 2015 Hajj

Weeks after the bloody Hajj ceremony this year, which was the deadliest annual religious event for Muslims worldwide, the reasons for this incident remain unclear. Among these, the high number of Iranian casualties is striking, and no satisfactory explanation has been provided so far. Saudi officials have adopted a similar approach to natural disasters, evading responsibility and avoiding accountability. Meanwhile, none of the Islamic countries, whose citizens were among the victims of this painful tragedy in Mina this year, have complained to the Saudi government, except for the Islamic Republic, which has launched a psychological campaign against the Saudi government since the beginning of this tragic event, escalating tensions between the two countries to their highest level. In the early days of the tragedy, Iranian officials complained about the lack of cooperation from their Saudi counterparts, and even the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic explicitly threatened this country. However, later, according to the claims of the Minister of Health and the Deputy Parliamentary Minister of Foreign Affairs, cooperation improved satisfactorily. The government officially holds Saudi officials responsible for negligence and mismanagement in the Mina incident and demands the formation of a fact-finding committee to identify the causes of the incident. At lower levels and among unofficial forces, a conspiratorial view is being fostered, suggesting that a powerful will within the Saudi power structure deliberately orchestrated this tragedy to harm the current rulers. However, it seems that the main and unannounced approach of the Islamic Republic is to challenge the legitimacy of the Al Saud family in overseeing the Hajj ceremonies and to exert political pressure to contain Saudi Arabia. On a more limited scale, determining the fate of missing Iranian diplomatic and military figures, especially Ghaznfar Roknabadi, the former Iranian ambassador to Lebanon, is crucial for the Iranian government and will significantly impact the ongoing verbal war between Iran and Saudi Arabia. Although some claim he has been seen alive among the injured, it is likely that Roknabadi is also among the casualties; however, it remains unclear whether his body is in a morgue or among the 29 Iranian dead buried in Saudi Arabia. As claimed by the leadership and forces close to it, they will not abandon the pursuit of the Mina tragedy and continue to demand the Saudi government uncover the truth and deliver justice regarding the perpetrators. Alongside the hardening stance of Iranian officials and attacks on the Saudi consulate in Mashhad and the embassy in Tehran, along with insulting slogans during Friday prayers, the tone of Saudi officials has also deviated from diplomatic decorum, accusing the Iranian government of political exploitation. Recently, Adel al-Jubeir, the Saudi Foreign Minister, boldly accused the Islamic Republic of being a "exporter and supporter of terrorism, negatively interfering in regional affairs, and being viewed as an occupying country of Arab lands in Syria." Of course, the dimensions of the conflict between Iran and Saudi Arabia go beyond the Mina tragedy and have more pronounced aspects, but the outcome of the Mina incident will significantly affect this confrontation. The Saudi government has blamed the deceased pilgrims for the chaos and introduced disorder as the reason for the human congestion disaster during this year's Hajj. The Saudi Minister of Health claimed that the pilgrims' interaction with each other was due to their movement without regard to the schedule set by officials, and the head of the central Hajj committee identified African pilgrims as the main culprits of this incident. Some officials from the Saudi Hajj organization also cited the disorder of Iranian pilgrims as the cause of the incident. However, the reasons for this tragic event have not been convincingly unveiled so far. Claims that Saudi Arabia or another country deliberately caused this tragedy have not been substantiated by any evidence and are merely baseless speculation based on conspiracy theories. Even some Iranian military and security officials, such as Rahim Safavi and Ali Shamkhani, have rejected this notion. What can help understand the issue is the weak management in conducting this year's Hajj and the disproportionate facilities and poor planning relative to the high number of pilgrims. The streets designated for Mina rituals resemble the letters T and H in the English alphabet. At the same time, some routes are exclusively reserved for Saudi officials and their guests, which undermines the spirit of equality that governs the Hajj ceremonies. Buildings in the Mina area are constructed and allocated to individuals with greater financial power instead of tents. They have their own paths. Additionally, the streets related to Mina are not paved, and the hot sand can reach temperatures between 40 to 45 degrees Celsius during Hajj. The tall walls of Mina's streets have enclosed the area. In this situation, when the path is blocked and the crowd density reaches an unbearable level, a humanitarian disaster occurs. The time of death in a human crush is estimated to be between 4 to 8 minutes due to excessive pressure. Medical facilities in Mina to assist the injured are insufficient, and at best, ambulances can reach the scene in fifteen minutes; thus, it can be inferred that when the crowd is trapped in T and H-shaped streets with no exit, some have chosen the simplest way to climb over others to reach the top of the walls. Those who have fallen not only endure the pressure of others but also grapple with the extreme heat of the ground. Delayed and inadequate emergency response, along with a lack of skills in emergency management, has led to hundreds of deaths. Therefore, the Saudi government is to be blamed and held accountable for its poor management and failure to respond in a timely manner. Even if some pilgrims behaved disorderly and endangered others' lives with impatience, it does not diminish the responsibility of the Saudi government. If a solution for planning and emergency management is not devised, the Mina tragedy could recur in future years, as it has in the past, with over 1,400 people killed in 1990. The status of the number of fatalities is still unclear, and the identities of some individuals who have been buried or whose bodies are in the morgue have not been identified. Conflicting reports regarding the death toll have been published. The latest official figures announced by the Saudi Minister of Health on September 26 indicated 769 dead and 934 injured, and subsequently, the Saudi Deputy Minister of Health, Hamad bin Mohammed al-Dhuwaili, mentioned a total death toll of 4,173, which was later denied. It can be said with high confidence that this figure is incorrect. At the same time, the claim of Saeed Ohadi, the head of Iran's Hajj Organization, estimating the number of dead to be nearly eight thousand, also seems unlikely to match reality. Based on the statistics provided so far by the responsible Hajj organizations in countries that suffered human losses, as well as reports from the Associated Press, the death toll has reached 2,268. If we also consider the missing persons from the incident as confirmed casualties, then the total human toll of the heartbreaking Mina tragedy reaches 2,905. As can be seen, Iran ranks first by a significant margin compared to other countries in both cases. Since the total number of Iranian pilgrims was not the highest among the pilgrims, this situation seems unusual. Hajj executive officials, including Ohadi, claim that Iranian caravans did not commit any violations and followed their daily schedule as planned. Ohadi states that only 34 caravans out of a total of 455 Iranian caravans were forced to move along street 204 due to the request of the Saudi police, which Iranian pilgrims had never used. Some sources cite this incident as the reason for increased congestion and disorder. It has even been said that some caravans did not start their stoning ritual at the announced time. Ohadi, while denying the existence of a notification to start the rituals at the specified time, has rejected this claim. However, Qazi Asgar, responsible for the leadership mission, claims that some Iranian caravans did have violations. He stated, "455 caravans were dispatched from Iran for this year's Hajj, of which 400 caravans followed these recommendations and were not harmed, but the other caravans encountered problems, and the failure of these caravans to adhere to the recommendations of the Hajj and Pilgrimage Organization is under review by committees." Therefore, it can be concluded that the high number of Iranian casualties is likely related to poor management and mistakes made by some caravans. Thus, alongside the necessity to uncover the factors that caused the humanitarian disaster of Mina during the largest religious ceremony of Muslims worldwide and to hold the Saudi government accountable, the situation of caravans that have mismanaged and failed to follow recommendations must also be clarified, so that similar incidents do not occur in the future. Of course, this requires structural reforms and increased safety measures in Hajj, and the Saudi government must engage a group of global experts in this work, in collaboration with other countries, to prevent the lives of thousands of others from being endangered in future years and to ensure that the deaths of the current victims are not forgotten. This important task must be conducted free from political hostage-taking and disputes between countries; otherwise, success will not be achievable.