RIYADH, 4 February 2004 — An eyewitness account of the Jamrat tragedy which occurred in Mina on Sunday, in which 251 pilgrims were killed and a similar number injured, has put the blame squarely on the pilgrims. They evidently ignored instructions which had been given to them — in some cases before they left their home countries.

However, some pilgrims are blaming the Saudi security forces. They say that pilgrims were allowed to converge on the Jamrat area from all directions thus making crowd control extremely difficult. In addition, in some areas boy scouts instead of adult policemen were used as security.

“It’s true the conduct of some pilgrims was the trigger for the chain of events. But the government allowed boy scouts to man some of the security arrangements,” an Indian pilgrim who was trapped in the crush told Arab News by phone from Mina.

He said: “When the tragedy happened, the security forces arrived on the scene in full force. Why hadn’t they been deployed beforehand when it is well-known that tragic incidents have happened in the last few years?”

He said that the problem was made considerably worse by pilgrims streaming in from all directions. There should have been a system to ensure that they enter the Jamrat area from one direction and exit from another. The trouble began when some attempted to exit by the same way they had entered.

Tahera Ahsan, an Indian housewife, said that in the confusion that followed the security breakdown, some women became victims of pickpockets.

Blaming pilgrims for the tragedy, she said: “When we left India on the way to Jeddah, we were given clear instructions on what to do and what not to do. I am sure pilgrims from other countries must also have received similar instructions. What happened at the stoning was the result of a lack of discipline and undue haste in performing the rituals.”

Mohammed Rafiq Ahmed, also from India, claimed that many pilgrims had slipped and fallen after stepping on piles of shorn hair which had been left on the ground (shaving the head after stoning the devil at Jamrat is part of the Haj ritual). He said that the hair made the ground slippery so pilgrims tripped on it and fell, which produced a chain reaction of people falling which resulted in the 251 deaths.

According to another pilgrim, another factor in the situation was the number of pilgrims’ suitcases and other luggage. The items had been left along the way to save the pilgrims the bother of returning to claim them from their far-away camps.