Fourteen killed in Muslim pilgrimage

FOURTEEN pilgrims were trampled to death yesterday during a ritual in the annual Muslim pilgrimage in which crowds of people throw pebbles at three stone pillars representing the devil’s temptations.

Some pilgrims fell and were killed by the crush of people around them, according to the official Saudi Press Agency.

As one group of pilgrims finished their ritual stoning and left the site, they met up with another group, swelling the crowd to dangerous proportions, the agency quoted hajj security director Abdel Aziz bin Mohammed bin Said as saying.

The deaths occurred at bout 10.30am in a Mina market area, he was quoted as saying.

"A lot of overcrowding took place, some of them fell on the ground, which lead to the death of 14 pilgrims," the agency's report said.

The three pillars ritual has been the source of dangerous bottlenecks in the past. In 2001, 35 people died in a stampede during the devil-stoning ritual. In 1998, 180 died performing the same ritual.

The dead included six women and nationals from Pakistan, India, Egypt, Iran and Yemen, the AFP agency reported.

More than two million Muslims were taking part in the ritual, after praying at Mount Arafat on Tuesday and collecting pebbles for the stoning.

The pilgrimage, which takes Muslims in the footsteps of Mohammed, Islam's 7th Century prophet, is the biggest annual mass movement of people on the planet.

In Mina, the devil is represented by three giant concrete pillars.

Yesterday, pilgrims threw only seven small stones at the first pillar, known as the "big Satan".

The stoning continues over the next three days and after completing the ritual, pilgrims circle the Kaaba a cube-shaped stone structure at the centre of Mecca's Grand Mosque seven times.

Then they say farewell prayers and ask God to accept their pilgrimage, which every able-bodied Muslim must make once in a lifetime.

After the stoning ritual, pilgrims may celebrate the start of the Eid al-Adha, or feast of sacrifice, by slaughtering a camel, cow or a sheep.