CAIRO: Egyptian Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly on Saturday ordered 16 tourism companies stripped off their licenses and referred their managers to the public prosecutor’s office for illegally facilitating pilgrims’ travel to Makkah, the Cabinet said. The order came after various countries reported more than 1,100 deaths, many attributed to high heat, during this year’s hajj.

Arab diplomats told AFP earlier this week that Egyptians accounted for 658 deaths, 630 of them are unregistered pilgrims. “The prime minister has ordered the licenses of these companies to be revoked, their managers to be referred to the public prosecutor and the imposition of a fine to benefit the families of the pilgrims who died because of them,” the Egyptian Cabinet said in a statement.

It said the rise in the deaths of unregistered Egyptian pilgrims stemmed from some companies which “organized the hajj programs using a personal visit visa, which prevents its holders from entering Makkah” via official channels. On Friday a senior Saudi official defended the Gulf kingdom’s management of the pilgrimage.

Hajj permits are allocated to countries on a quota system and distributed to individuals via a lottery. Even for those who can obtain them, the steep costs spur many pilgrims to attempt the hajj without a permit, though they risk arrest and deportation if caught by Saudi security forces. The irregular route, which can save pilgrims thousands of dollars, has become increasingly popular since 2019 when Saudi Arabia introduced a general tourism visa which has made it easier to enter the Gulf kingdom. The senior official said the Saudi government had confirmed 577 deaths for the two busiest days of hajj:

Saturday, when pilgrims gathered for hours of prayers in the blazing sun on Mount Arafat, and Sunday, when they participated in the “stoning of the devil” ritual in Mina. “This happened amid difficult weather conditions and a very harsh temperature,” the official said, while acknowledging that the 577 figure was partial and did not cover all of hajj, which formally ended on Wednesday. — AFP