Tunisian President Kais Saied has fired the North African country’s minister of religious affairs after it was confirmed that 49 Tunisian pilgrims were killed during the annual Islamic hajj in Saudi Arabia amid scorching heat.
Saïed has decided to end Ibrahim Chaibi’s duties, Tunisia’s official news agency TAP reported on Friday, citing a presidential statement that provided no explanation.
The move came shortly after Chaibi confirmed 49 deaths among Tunisian pilgrims, mainly due to high temperatures during the rituals.
The fatalities included 44 unregistered pilgrims who had embarked on the religious journey on tourist visas, Chaibi said.
According to TAP, he acknowledged the possibility of negligence in the supervision of the pilgrims.
Temperatures in the Saudi city of Mecca and other nearby holy sites hovered around 50 degrees Celsius through the last day of pilgrimage on Tuesday.
Videos circulating online reportedly show Muslim pilgrims lying dead on roads in Saudi Arabia after suffering heat stroke during the Hajj. No official Saudi comment has been received so far.
Several Arab governments said most of the pilgrims who died in Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of Islam, were unregistered and had traveled on tourist visas, making it harder to find them or determine their true numbers.
Unregistered pilgrims generally do not have access to accommodation and transportation.
The Egyptian government is about to revoke the licenses of 16 tour operators for organizing illegal hajj trips, Egyptian media said on Saturday, amid unconfirmed reports that most of the deaths among unregistered pilgrims were Egyptians.
Prime Minister Mustafa Madbouly ordered the operators’ licenses revoked over fraud and their officials referred to prosecution, state-affiliated al-Qahera News TV reported.
Egypt’s official hajj mission counted more than 50,000 pilgrims this year and among them 31 died from chronic diseases, Madbouly said, according to the online edition of Egypt’s state newspaper al-Ahram.
There was no official word on fatalities among the unregistered pilgrims.
“The pilgrims who lost their lives during this crisis are largely unregistered. The travel companies that arranged their trips did not provide them with any services,” Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry said at a government crisis meeting, according to Egyptian state television. .
About 1.8 million pilgrims took part in the Hajj this year.
The hajj, one of the five pillars of Islam, is an obligatory obligation that all Muslims must complete once in their lives, if they have the financial and physical means to do so.
