Authorities at the Ghana mission in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia say, they have found 15 Ghanaian pilgrims who went missing after a stampede which claimed over 700 lives.
The mission in a statement signed by the ambassador, Alhaji Said Sinare said, 18 Ghanaians went missing after a head count.
[contextly_sidebar id=”EHIQet0Cr5FdQgC5qM4xyscuGcHaGapg”]“There are currently about 18 Ghanaian pilgrims missing and cannot be accounted for. So far, however, the search was able to locate more than 15 of the total number of Ghanaian missing pilgrims, and are working around the clock to locate the rest who are still missing.”
The statement explained that such things usually happen “due to the logistical challenges of taking care of more than two million people at the same place and time” but are usually “found at the end of the pilgrimage when the pilgrims are about leaving for their various destinations.”
According to the statement, the Ghana mission and the Pilgrims Affairs Office of Ghana (PAOG) have deployed a combined search team to the various hospitals and strategic locations in the Mecca municipality.
“It is our hope that all of them will be found before the first scheduled return flight to Accra on October 8, 2015,” the statement added.
It added that three Ghanaians died during the stampede while going through a ritual known as ‘stoning the devil,’ adding that five others also lost their lives through health complications.
“The 2015 Hajj Pilgrimage will go down in history as one of the most challenging one due to the two unfortunate incidents that occurred before and during the Hajj Pilgrimage, respectively. The first incident was when a crawler crane toppled over unto worshippers at the Grand Mosque in Makkah killing 111 people and injured about 394. The second was the stampede at Mina near Makkah,” the statement added.
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By: Godwin A. Allotey/citifmonline.com/Ghana