Turkish death toll in hajj stampede rises to seven

ANKARA – Anadolu Agency

AFP photo

Saudi officials have recovered the bodies of four more Turkish victims of the hajj stampede on Sept. 12, bringing the total death toll of Turkish citizens to seven.

Sources from Turkey’s Directorate of Religious Affairs (Diyanet) identified the pilgrims as Satılmış Gencel, Şengül Arslan, İsmail Muzır, and Enver Karakülah.
      
The victims had been missing since the stampede, which was the deadliest disaster to strike the annual pilgrimage in a quarter-century. 

In the Sept. 24 disaster in Mina, two waves of pilgrims converged on a narrow road, causing hundreds of people to suffocate or be trampled to death.

The Saudi Health Ministry says the death toll for the incident in Mina on Sept. 24 remains 769 people, with another 934 injured in the crush of pilgrims who were performing one of the final rites of the hajj.
      
The stampede came two weeks after 107 people were killed by a crane that collapsed in Mecca’s Grand Mosque, which had been teeming with worshippers at the time of the accident.