Saudileaks: Documents Disclose 90,000 Pilgrims Killed for Saudi Mismanagement in 14 Years

The Arabic-language Beirut-based al-Akhbar newspaper said that it has 3121 documents disclosing the precise number of the Hajj pilgrims killed while performing their Hajj rituals since 2002.

The documents contain detailed information, including the names, nationalities, age and date of death of the Hajj pilgrims. 

The figure is released while according to the official figures released by the Saudi regime about 3,200 Hajj pilgrims have died during 1990-2015 period.

“This means that Saudi Arabia has not only lied to the public opinion about the Mina tragic incident, but it is has been its constant policy throughout years,” several media analysts said.

On 24 September 2015, a crowd collapse caused the deaths of at least 7,000 pilgrims who were suffocated or crushed during the annual Hajj pilgrimage in Mina, Mecca, making it the deadliest Hajj disaster in history.

The deaths occurred as Saudi Arabia is facing increased scrutiny on this year’s Hajj to keep pilgrims safe.

On Wednesday, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei blasted the silence of the international community and those countries which have lost their citizens in the 2015 Mina incident, and called for sending a fact-finding committee to Saudi Arabia to find the root causes of the painful death of over 7,000 Muslims.

“If they (the Saudis) are telling the truth and aren’t responsible for the incident, they should allow an Islamic-international fact-finding delegation to scrutinize the realities of the issue closely and clarify (the cause of) the incident,” Ayatollah Khamenei said in Tehran on Wednesday in a meeting with family members of nearly 500 Iranian nationals killed in the last year Mina incident in Saudi Arabia.

“The Muslim Ummah (nation) experienced a great loss in the Mina incident, and 7,000 to 8,000 people were martyred, but no one showed a reaction in other countries but Iran, and they kept silent. This silence is a great calamity reigning over the Islamic nations and this is a disaster for the world of Islam,” the Iranian leader said.

“The international bodies start hues and cries over animals’ rights, but now several thousand people have lost their lives in an incident, and they are dead silent,” Ayatollah Khamenei added.

Noting that “the evil, damned progeny of the Al-Saud is not qualified to administer the holy shrines”, he blasted the Saudi rulers for refraining from extending even a verbal apology over the incident.

Ayatollah Khamenei stressed that the Iranian nation is bravely standing against the Saudi regime’s ignorance and aberration, and said that the Saudis’ inefficiency in managing the Hajj ceremony showed that they are not competent and qualified to administer the rituals and the holy shrines, and other nations and countries should also stand against them.

Noting that the hands of the supporters of the Saudi regime are also stained with the blood of those killed in the Mina incident, he said, “The shameless Saudi regime, supported by the US, is blatantly standing against the Muslims and it is shedding blood in Yemen, Syria, Iraq and Bahrain and therefore, the US and other supporters of Riyadh are also accomplices to the Saudi crimes.”

Ayatollah Khamenei underlined that most of those killed during the Mina incident were Sunni Muslims, among them many Sunni Iranians, and said despite the western states’ propaganda, the Saudis don’t even support the Arab people.

“The reality is that the hated Saudis are a group within the Muslim world and some of them with and some of them without knowledge are doing enmity to the Muslims, and the Muslim world should stand against them and pronounce denouncement and hatred for the masters of the Saudis, that are the US and British devils,” he added.