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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
World
Ruth Michaelson and Menna Farouk

One man’s desperate search for wife as more than 1,000 hajj pilgrims die in extreme heat

Pilgrims in Mecca circle the Kaaba with buildings behind
Hajj pilgrims perform the ‘tawaf’, circling seven times around the Kaaba, Islam’s holiest shrine, at the Grand Mosque in Mecca. Photograph: Mohamad Torokman/Reuters

Hoda Nagib and her husband had walked 20km in the baking sun in Saudi Arabia when she told him that she needed to rest. The couple, who are in their 60s, had just scaled Mount Arafat, along with thousands of other white-robed pilgrims on the hajj pilgrimage to Mecca, Islam’s holiest city, where temperatures as high as 51.8C have been recorded in the shade in recent days.

Nagib’s husband left her to perform a ritual known as the stoning of the devil. When he returned she had disappeared, their neighbour Walaa Roshdy explained.

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