Iran, S. Arabia establish 10 search groups for Mina incident

Dr. Hassan Hashemi who was speaking in the Special Mina Incident Committee in the Ministry of Health on Sunday, told reporters that many killed pilgrims had not been identified yet; “a decision by the Committee mandates giving each of the pilgrims’ families a form where they could provide the Iranian Legal Medicine Organization (Forensic Medicine) with personal features which could help identify the pilgrim more easily,” he said.

“The last resort will be, in the case that every other attempt leaves yet unidentified pilgrim, fingerprinting and DNA test, which will however be time-intensive,” Hashemi told reporters, adding that Iran and Saudi Arabia each had organized 5 search teams in collaboration with each other to accelerate the search and identification of the victims.

“We work to finish the identification of pilgrims in the least possible time; at the meantime however, the issue are unauthorized commentary and statistics, which would exacerbate the public concerns through circulation and multiplication of the exaggerated events,” he asserted. “There is an urgent need to wisely avoid disorganized misinformation; we should attain justice in our verdict, eschewing gossip and rumors,” he quoted Leader of the Islamic Republic.

Hashemi also praised efforts by Ministry of Roads and City Planning for their “laudable job in transferring the killed pilgrims especially in rapid transfer of the corpses in recent days.”