Hajj stampede El-Miskin, Bilkisu, 700 others die
Deputy Secretary General of the Nigeria Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs Professor Tijjani Abubakar El-Miskin as well as veteran journalist and prominent civil society activist Hajiya Bilkisu were confirmed to be among the dead yesterday during the deadly stampede that occurred at the Jamarat Bridge outside Mecca, in Saudi Arabia.
Another Nigerian, a pharmacist, Hafsat Shittu, was also confirmed dead last night.
Saudi authorities said more than 700 people died in the stampede while hundreds more were injured. Many pilgrims from Nigeria as well as Niger Republic, Chad and Senegal were feared to be among the casualties in the worst stampede at the annual hajj in 25 years.
The stampede accoutred during the last major rite of the annual pilgrimage, the symbolic stoning of the devil. There was a crush when a huge number of pilgrims turned out for the symbolic stone throwing and the pilgrims were going in opposite directions, contrary to the procedure.
It was not clear as at last night how many Nigerian pilgrims died or were injured in the stampede but El-Miskin’s death was confirmed by the Borno State Amirul Hajj, the state’s former deputy governor Alhaji Adamu Dibal who spoke to the state’s radio station.
In addition to his NSCIA duties, El-Miskin was the Executive Chairman of the Borno State Pilgrims Welfare Agency, a position he was appointed to in 2013 when Governor Kashim Shettima reconstituted the agency’s board. He was also a professor of Islamic Studies at the University of Maiduguri and a former Director General of the Nigeria Arabic Village at Gamboru, Borno State. One of the country’s most versatile Muslim clerics, teachers and activists, Professor El-Miskin once taught at the Nigeria Defence Academy in Kaduna.
He was very prominent at academic and Islamic lecture circuits and has hundreds of seminar papers to his name. His father, the prominent Tijjaniyya cleric Sheikh Abubakar El-Miskin, died in Maiduguri last November at the age of 100. He was also a member of the committee of traditional rulers, retired military officers, academics, businessmen and former public officers set up by the Northern States Governors Forum two years ago to work for reconciliation, healing and security in the troubled North East region.
Hajiya Bilkisu was the most prominent female journalist from Northern Nigeria for several decades. She was editor of Sunday Triumph in the early 1980s and became editor of the New Nigerian in 1987. She then became editor of Citizen Magazine in 1990. Apart from journalism, Hajiya Bilkisu was also very well known for civil society activism and in particular for her role in the nurturing of Muslim Women’s NGOs.
She was Deputy National Amirah of the Federated Organisation of Muslim Women’s Associations of Nigeria [FOMWAN]. She wrote hundreds of seminar papers and attended civil society conferences all over the world. Most recently, she was deeply involved in helping persons internally displaced by the crises in the North East region.
She presented a paper on the issue at the Daily Trust awareness and fund-raising event for internally displaced persons in late August.
Hajiya Bilkisu also maintained the weekly column Civil Society Watch in Daily Trust. She has maintained the column for more than a decade and sent her most recent article, which appeared in yesterday’s edition, from Mecca on Wednesday evening.
Second deadliest
stampede
The latest casualty figures at press time yesterday were 719 pilgrims dead and 863 injured.
This was the second deadliest tragedy that occurred in the tents city after the July 2, 1990 stampede in a tunnel that killed 1,426 pilgrims.
There is no confirmation from Nigerian hajj authorities as to the number of Nigerians involved.
But there was anxiety among Nigerian pilgrims as hajj officials made frantic phone calls trying to reach out to those pilgrims that didn’t return to their tents after the incident.
National Hajj Commission of Nigeria (NAHCON) has met with state pilgrim’s boards officials to compute the list of Nigerians affected.
There was no official response from the hajj officials. One of them said they agreed to return to their various state camps for another head count of their pilgrims.
It was difficult to ascertain the number of Nigerians affected in the stampeded because most of them left Mina to Makkah for other hajj rituals.
“It is difficult to say how many Nigerians are affected until much later when majority of them must have returned to their tents in Mina,” a Nigerian official said.
The stampede occurred on Street 204 in Mina, which is one of the two main arteries leading through the camp to Jamarat, where pilgrims ritually stone the devil by hurling pebbles.
The street was officially designated for African and Iranian pilgrims.
Six Nigerians where killed in the crane tragedy that collapsed in the Grand Mosque in Makkah on September 11 and dozens others injured.
The Saudi Directorate for Civil Defence said the casualty figure could increase.
In some areas rescue workers laid bodies in long rows on stretchers, limbs protruding from beneath white sheets.
The civil defence service said it was still counting the dead, who included pilgrims from different countries, and that at least 863 people had also been hurt.
Nearly two million people from across the globe were attending the hajj, one of the largest annual gatherings in the world.
Iran said at least 90 of its citizens died, and accused Saudi Arabia of safety errors.
Saudi medics tend to injured pilgrims after they arrived at an emergency hospital following a deadly …
Preparations for the Hajj were marred when a crane collapsed at Mecca’s Grand Mosque this month, killing 109 people.
During the Hajj, pilgrims travel to Mina, a large valley about 5km (3 miles) from Mecca, to throw seven stones at pillars called Jamarat, which represent the devil.
The pillars stand where Satan is believed to have tempted the Prophet Abraham.
“The reason for that is not known yet,” he told a news conference in Mina.
Iranian state news agency IRNA said at least 122 Iranians were among the dead and quoted Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian, according to Reuters.
The office of the Iran’s supreme leader Grand Ayatullah Sayed Ali Khamenei has declared three day mourning in Iran over the hajj deaths.