Muslim pilgrims die in stampede

Thirty-five Muslim pilgrims were killed in a stampede at the annual haj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia today, a civil defence official said.

Civil Defence chief Brigadier General Saad bin Abdullah al-Tuwaijer said 23 women and 12 men of various nationalities had been crushed to death in the stampede during the devil-stoning ritual at Jamarat, near the Muslim holy city of Mecca.

"At 8.12 a.m. (0512 GMT) this morning...most pilgrims who had arrived in Mena early flocked to Jamarat in huge numbers," Tuwaijer, quoted by the official Saudi Press Agency, said.

"As a result of pushing at the stoning point, several pilgrims, most of whom were elderly, fell to the ground, resulting in the death of 35 persons...as a result of suffocation and stampede."

He said the nationality of the dead pilgrims would be announced later.

Tuwaijer said security men intervened and took control of the situation, ensuring the safety of hundreds of thousands of other pilgrims gathered at the bridge.

The Jamarat bridge was the scene of a similar stampede in 1998 in which at least 119 people were killed, including some Saudi policemen.

In 1997, 343 people died in a fire that swept through thousands of tents in Mena, another holy site near Mecca. Saudi Arabia has since spent millions of dollars on fire-proof tents.

About two million Muslim pilgrims from 160 countries are in Saudi Arabia for the pilgrimage, one of the five pillars of Islam.

Muslims round the world are celebrating the feast of Eid al-Adha, which marks God's last-minute command to Abraham to slaughter a sheep instead of his son Ismail, according to the Muslim holy book, the Koran.

It says God wanted to test Abraham's faith when he ordered him to cut the throat of his son.

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