JEDDAH, 17 December 2007 — Five Indian pilgrims, who died on Saturday when the bus they were traveling in toppled over on the Madinah-Makkah highway, will be buried today.
“The burial of the dead pilgrims is expected to be completed by tomorrow,” Indian Consul General Dr. Ausaf Sayeed told Arab News yesterday.
The Consulate General of India said it had dispatched a special medical team of Indian doctors to Al-Rabigh General Hospital soon after the accident to ensure medical care for the injured pilgrims and liaise with hospital authorities to help those injured.
“The medical team is closely monitoring the condition of the injured,” Sayeed said, adding that some of the injured were in serious condition but out of danger. Thirteen of the 19 injured in the accident are undergoing treatment at Al-Rabigh General Hospital, 200 km from Makkah.
The bus — carrying 46 pilgrims, who had arrived in the Kingdom with Akbar Tour and Travels, an Indian private tour operator — overturned while on its way from Madinah to Makkah. All passengers were from the Trichur district in the southern Indian state of Kerala.
The injured have been identified as Ali Hyderas Arakkal, Thozukattil Ummar, Mohammed Rian Masakar, Umar Mohammed Sheikh, Mariam Ahmad, Haliman Hasan, Amna Kutty, Nasira Umar, Suhara Abdu, Kunhaleema Abubakar, Kaya Pavrutty, Jamila Mohammed and Nadia Mohammed Salim. Six other injured pilgrims have since reached Makkah and are staying in a building in Azizia close Alvi Tunsi Hospital.
Meanwhile, an eight-member Sri Lankan Haj goodwill delegation, headed by Minister for Petroleum and Petroleum Resources Development A.H.M. Fowzie, arrived in Jeddah yesterday. “We are on our way to Makkah,” Fowzie, who is also the minister of health, highways and social services, told Arab News on the phone from the Haj Terminal. “In all 5,500 Sri Lankans are performing Haj this year,” he added.
