The commissioner for information, library research and statistics, National Hajj Commission of Nigeria (NAHCON), Dr Saleh Okenwa, has disclosed that 274 Nigerian pilgrims have been confirmed dead in the tragic Hajj stampede in Mina, Saudi Arabia during this year’s Hajj operation.
Dr Okenwa, who disclosed this yesterday in Abuja at a press conference to give an update on the September 24 stampede in the holy land, said 44 other Nigerian pilgrims are still missing while two were injured as a result of the incident.
The 2015 Hajj witnessed a crane accident which occurred at Saudi Grand Mosque on Friday, 11th September and a stampede which occurred nearly a fortnight later on Thursday, September 24.
According to the NAHCON commissioner, the two tragic incidents witnessed during the pilgrimage occurred despite efforts by both Saudi authorities and Nigerian Hajj officials to make the exercise hitch-free.
He said the tragic incidents should be accepted as the will of Almighty God, praying that Allah would “accept the victims of the tragedies as martyrs and grant their families and loved ones the fortitude to bear the loss”.
Okenwa said that the commission has been working since the occurrence of the stampede to get all relevant and accurate information regarding the details of the Nigerian victims, adding that the commission constituted several committees charged with the responsibility of handling issues arising from the Hajj tragedies.
Okenwa further said, “In cases where the corpses were mutilated, fingerprint analysis matching with entry data in the Saudi Immigration Service” were used in identifying the victims.
He added, “In extreme cases where the bodies were mutilated beyond fingerprint analysis, direct relatives of the victims who also came for Hajj were required to provide blood samples in the hospital”.
The NAHCON commissioner added that dead victims were buried in numbered graves, adding that despite all the efforts made, there were cases where the bodies were unidentifiable and relatives of the victims were not available in the kingdom (of Saudi Arabia) for DNA provision. In such cases, the dead bodies were buried on the directives of the Saudi authorities, in line with avoidance of health hazards to the living.
Concerning missing pilgrims who could not be confirmed dead because there was no certified evidence of their identities, he said, “Nigeria recorded 44 of such cases, hence the need for DNA of the relatives of the missing pilgrims”.
He, however, explained that this situation is not peculiar to Nigeria alone as many other countries had their own share of the tragedies in various degrees. (Leadership)
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