Saudi Arabia not capable of organizing Hajj: Commentator

Press TV has conducted an interview with Redwan Rizk, a political commentator in Beirut, to discuss the recent crush in Mina that killed hundreds of Hajj pilgrims on the outskirts of the holy city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia.

What follows is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: At this point, we have Saudi Arabia, that is even failing to give not only the proper death toll but also to look into the case and the fate of the missing. Why is this mismanagement continuing on the part of Saudi Arabia?

Rizk: Well, I think it has been happening and going on every year. That’s showing that the government in Saudi Arabia has no capability of organizing or keeping the pilgrims safe because the same story we have been seeing and experiencing this kind of accidents; and now this year was, I think a large number of pilgrims were killed, and so far, the investigations showing that the government or a member of the royal family in Saudi Arabia is to be blamed for that and that is why we are seeing that the government in Saudi Arabia is a bit shaky and uncertain about the conclusion of the investigations because so far they want to put the blame on the  pilgrims themselves.

What is leaked out of some information that one member of the family and his convoy caused all these kinds of chaos among the pilgrims, which has caused this high death toll in one of the worse situations in this time of the year. And that proves that the government in Saudi Arabia is showing year after year a bit of lacking of experience and capability to organize such large number of people – about two million pilgrims this year – and they could not organize it. They did not facilitate or give the pilgrims all the facilities first, just to expose their visit and to go by the agenda as it plans. They have no plan. They are a bit messy in their plans, in their organizations which has left the pilgrims a bit uncertain how to walk, where to go and in all directions.

I believe that the Saudi Arabia government should admit that they are not capable of organizing such an occasion. They should get help from other countries around the world, from Muslim world to help in organizing this kind of… or this large number of people visiting the same place at the same time in a very short time. It is about less than a week time, let’s say. So this should not be repeatable and everything should be reconsidered about the capability of the government and they should be humble enough and admit that they are not capable to do that. Then, they should ask for help from Muslim countries to organize and to keep this journey safe, let’s say, to keep this visit safe.

It is not ending every year with a catastrophe like that, with a tragedy like that. People are going there to pay their prayers, to do the Hajj ceremonies. After all they are coming back home in coffins for no reason at all. This could be avoided and can be avoided, just the Saudi government must admit that they should a bit compromise on their egoism and pride and if they admit that they are not capable to do that, then the problem can be solved for good because such accidents can happen up on individual basis but now we have seen a massacre took place among the pilgrims which is about more than 717 pilgrims were killed, more than 2,000 injured and many, many are still missing and we do not know the death toll, it is going to be raised more and more, we are definite because about 400 pilgrims are missing and that could rise the death toll for more than a thousand pilgrims.

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