JEDDAH, 10 February 2005 — A Filipino pilgrim died on the way to the airport yesterday.
Dr. Gurab, the doctor on duty at the King Abdulazziz International Airport clinic, pronounced Abdulraheem Salam Usup, 67, from Zamboanga, dead on arrival.
Dr. Gurab said Usup apparently died of heart attack.
Sources said that Usup was asleep in his seat in the bus that would take him and other pilgrims to the airport for their flight to Manila that was to leave for Manila at 8 p.m last night.
Nobody bothered him until the bus arrived at airport.
As his companions tried to wake him up he would not reply and they found him lifeless.
Usup is the third of this year’s pilgrims to have died while on Haj pilgrimage.
Earlier, two pilgrims, Binumbar B. Maguuindao, 75, from Lanao del Norte, and Soliman Lumenda, 68, from Cotabato City succumbed to bronchial asthma and cardiac arrest respectively.
The Philippine Consulate was informed of Usup’s expiration at around 12:40 p.m. yesterday.
Administrative Officer Taha Guinomla and some consulate officials immediately rushed to the airport.
Guinomla said that an average of three Filipino pilgrims die of natural causes while on pilgrimage every year.
He stressed, however, that elderly pilgrims wish to die here after they have performed their rituals. “They wish to die here simply because it is a rare opportunity to die in the holy land especially during the Haj.”
In spite of the deaths, a baby was born, Ali Noor Sampong Bangon.
The boy was born to proud parents Abulhair and Monaoray Bangon of Lanao del Norte on Jan. 24, 2005.
Usup, who has completed all his Haj rituals, was interred in Jeddah yesterday in a traditional Muslim burial.
Saudi Haj officials at the airport took care of the burial, as “he is a guest of Allah.”
An average of 3,000 Filipino Muslims perform Haj every year.