Mina stampede

At least 20 people died yesterday in Saudi Arabia in a bus accident, DPA reported.

The bus, which overturned and caught fire, was carrying passengers to the holy city of Mecca, including pilgrims on their way to perform Umrah, a minor Muslim pilgrimage.

Thirty-five people were killed and four were injured in a serious crash in Saudi Arabia, SPA reported. The incident took place in the province of Medina. The agency said, citing police sources, that a 39-passenger bus had collided with a truck.

The victims are of Asian and Arab nationality, the same source explained. More details about the incident are not reported.

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

An aerial view shows the Grand Mosque in Saudi Arabia's holy city of Mecca on June 3, 2018. AFP PHOTO / BANDAR ALDANDANI

More than 100,000 members of Saudi security forces will help protect 2 million pilgrims who are part of Hajj's annual pilgrimage to Mecca today, the agencies said.

Iran will be allowed to set up temporary consulates in Saudi Arabia during the hajj pilgrimage despite the absence of diplomatic ties between the two rivals, the foreign ministry in Tehran said on July 4.

Iran said Jan. 10, it had finally received an official invitation from Saudi Arabia for its pilgrims to attend this year's hajj, two weeks after Riyadh announced it.

A bitter war of words between Iran and Saudi Arabia intensified on Sept. 7 ahead of the annual hajj pilgrimage from which Iranians have been excluded for the first time in decades. Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei blasted the "incompetence" of the Saudi royal family as he met with the families of victims of a deadly stampede during last year's hajj.

Saudi Arabia has defended its judicial process at the United Nations, arguing that the 47 people executed at the weekend had been granted “fair and just trials without any consideration to their intellectual, racial, or sectarian affiliation”.

Saudi Arabia has suspended ties with Iran, accusing it of not interfering to prevent an attack on the Saudi embassy in Tehran over the weekend.

Tehran's diplomats on Sunday have been asked to leave the kingdom, after Ryadh's own ambassador and his staff were evacuated from the Islamic Republic.