Hajj stampede

At least 28 Turkish pilgrims died during the period of Hajj in Saudi Arabia, Turkey's top cleric told reporters on Aug. 12.

More than two million Muslims on Aug. 11 threw stones at a symbolic representation of the devil as part of the annual Hajj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia.           

At least 72,000 Turkish pilgrims have arrived in Saudi Arabia to perform Hajj, according to a local religious official.

You must have heard about the latest disaster in Mecca, Islam's holiest city, on Sept. 24. More than 700 pilgrims died in a stampede on the way to the ritual of "stoning the devil." And this was only a repetition of similar disasters that happened again in Mecca, and again during the Hajj, the annual pilgrimage that millions of Muslims come from all around the world to do.

At least 717 pilgrims were killed on Sept. 24 in a crush at Mina, outside the Muslim holy city of Mecca, where some two million people are performing the annual haj pilgrimage, Saudi Arabia's civil defence authority said.