Severe heat proves fatal for older Malaysia, Indonesia haj pilgrims: ‘saw people collapse’
- Thousands of elderly Indonesians and Malaysians made the trip to Mecca this year, but the extreme heat is taking a deadly toll
Soaring temperatures have taken a deadly toll on the high numbers of elderly Southeast Asian haj pilgrims who were among the two million Muslims who flocked to Mecca this year, authorities said.
“Three people had heatstroke, most of the rest were due to comorbidities,” Nasrullah Jassam, a representative of the Indonesian consulate in Jeddah, told CNN Indonesia on Wednesday.
Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim nation, routinely reports some of the highest mortality rates among the millions of foreigners who embark on the haj pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia.
Indonesian pilgrims often wait until they are older to undertake the pilgrimage, due to lengthy waiting lists and quotas in their home country.
This year, around 240,000 Indonesians made the journey to Mecca, according to government figures. Of these, nearly 45,000 were over 65, with some in their nineties. The oldest Indonesian pilgrim this year was 109.