At least 323 of those who died were Egyptians, most of them succumbing to heat-related illnesses, two Arab diplomats coordinating their countries’ responses told AFP.
“All of them (the Egyptians) died because of heat” except for one who sustained fatal injuries during a minor crowd crush, one of the diplomats said, adding the total figure came from the hospital morgue in the Al-Muaisem neighbourhood of Makkah.
At least 60 Jordanians also died, the diplomats said, up from an official tally of 41 given earlier on Tuesday by Amman.
The new deaths bring the total reported so far by multiple countries to 577, according to an AFP tally.
The diplomats said the total at the morgue in Al-Muaisem, one of the biggest in Makkah, was 5ason had successfully performed 24 open-heart surgeries on pilgrims, the Ministry of Health said on Monday.
In a statement published by the Saudi Press Agency (SPA), the ministry said 249 pilgrims had also undergone cardiac catheterizations, and 1,006 had dialysis operations, in addition to the admission of 4,082 pilgrims in need to hospitals and medical centers to receive the necessary health care.A Saudi medical team from the neurosciences center at King Abdullah Medical City performed a complex brain operation on a 70-year-old Turkish female Hajj pilgrim who had suffered a hemorrhage, the Saudi Press Agency reported on Sunday.
The team acted quickly to relieve pressure on the woman’s brain, drilling a hole in the skull and inserting a drainage tube.
X-rays identified an arteriovenous malformation in a critical area of the brain, which was treated using advanced medical techniques. There were no complications.
When the patient regained consciousness she was able to be taken off the respirator.
Her health is gradually improving, and plans are being made to allow her to complete Hajj with full medical supervision.
The patients were more than 142,000 pilgrims who have benefited from the various health services provided by health care centers in Makkah city and Mina since June 15, the first day of the annual pilgrimage.
Health services provided to the pilgrims varied between medical and specialized clinics, pharmacies, dialysis centers, intensive care rooms, and isolation units, said the MOH.
Three patients were evacuated by air ambulance and transferred to the King Ambdulaziz Medical Center in Jeddah. (SPA
In a separate report, SPA said a medical team from Ajyad Emergency Hospital, a member of the Makkah Al-Mukarramah Health Cluster, was able to save the life of a 53-year-old Egyptian pilgrim.
Officials said the patient arrived at the hospital complaining of chest pain. After determining that a heart clot was threatening the life and safety of the pilgrim, the case was dealt with urgently and quickly. The patient was then transferred to King Abdullah Medical City in Makkah to receive the required specialized medical service and care.
Two critical cases involving a 62-year-old Egyptian pilgrim and a 48-year-old Tunisian had to be evacuated by helicopter from hospitals in the holy sites to the King Abdullah Medical Complex in Jeddah, SPA said in another report.
Dr. Mahdi Othman, head of the KAMC’s Intensive Care Department, the Egyptian patient was received by air evacuation from Jabal al-Rahma Hospital, while the Tunisian patient was received by air evacuation from the Mina Emergency Hospital.
“Both cases contracted severe pneumonia while performing the Hajj rituals for this year 1445 AH, which led to respiratory failure, and then they needed an extracorporeal membrane oxygenation life support machine, and they were admitted to the intensive care unit under intensive medical observation and close follow-up,” the MOH said.50.
The Haj pilgrimage is increasingly affected by climate change, according to a Saudi study published last month that said temperatures in the area where rituals are performed were rising 0.4 degrees Celsius (0.72 degrees Fahrenheit) each decade.
Temperatures hit 51.8 degrees Celsius (125 Fahrenheit) at the Grand Mosque in Makkah on Monday, the Saudi national meteorology centre said.
Earlier on Tuesday, Egypt’s foreign ministry said Cairo was collaborating with Saudi authorities on search operations for Egyptians who had gone missing during the Haj.
While a ministry statement said “a certain number of deaths” had occurred, it did not specify whether Egyptians were among them.
Saudi authorities have reported treating more than 2,000 pilgrims suffering from heat stress but have not updated that figure since Sunday and have not provided information on fatalities.
At least 240 pilgrims were reported dead by various countries last year, most of them Indonesians.
AFP journalists in Mina, outside Makkah, on Monday saw pilgrims pouring bottles of water over their heads as volunteers handed out cold drinks and fast-melting chocolate ice cream to help them keep cool.
Saudi officials had advised pilgrims to use umbrellas, drink plenty of water and avoid exposure to the sun during the hottest hours of the day.
Some pilgrims described seeing motionless bodies on the roadside and ambulance services that appeared overwhelmed at times.
Around 1.8 million pilgrims took part in the Haj this year, 1.6m of them from abroad, according to Saudi authorities.
Each year tens of thousands of pilgrims attempt to perform the Haj through irregular channels as they cannot afford the often costly procedures for official Haj visas.
This places these off-the-books pilgrims at risk as they cannot access air-conditioned facilities provided by Saudi authorities along the Haj route.
One of the diplomats who spoke to AFP on Tuesday said that the Egyptian death toll was “absolutely” boosted by a large number of unregistered Egyptian pilgrims.
“Irregular pilgrims caused great chaos in the Egyptian pilgrims’ camps, causing the collapse of services,” said an Egyptian official supervising the country’s Haj mission.
“The pilgrims went without food, water, or air conditioning for a long time.”
They died “from the heat because most people had no place” to take shelter.
Earlier this month, Saudi officials said they had cleared hundreds of thousands of unregistered pilgrims from Makkah ahead of the Haj.
Other countries to report deaths during the Haj this year include Indonesia, Iran and Senegal.
Most countries have not specified how many deaths were heat-related.
Saudi Health Minister Fahd bin Abdul Rahman Al-Jalajel said on Tuesday that health plans for the Haj had “been successfully carried out”, preventing major outbreaks of disease and other public health threats, the official Saudi Press Agency reported.
Health officials “provided virtual consultations to over 5,800 pilgrims, primarily for heat-related illnesses, enabling prompt intervention and mitigating the potential for a surge in cases,” SPA said.
