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Officials have confirmed 717 pilgrims dead in Thursday’s tragic Hajj stampede in Saudi Arabia. Number of those injured has been put at 805.
Associated Press reports that the head of Iran’s hajj organization has blamed Saudi “mismanagement” for the disaster in which 41 Iranian pilgrims have died.
Saeed Ohadi told state TV by phone from Saudi Arabia that the incident might have been caused by the closure of a road. State TV says another 60 Iranian pilgrims were wounded in the incident.
Thursday’s disaster was the deadliest such incident on the annual hajj pilgrimage in more than two decades, and comes nearly two weeks after a crane collapsed in Mecca, killing 100 people.