Middle East: “Introduction of eVTOLs Vital to Saving Lives during Hajj”

The death toll dur­ing this year’s reli­gious Hajj pil­grim­age (June 14th-19th) in Sau­di Ara­bia was a stag­ger­ing 1,301 peo­ple, adding to the many thou­sands who have died in pre­vi­ous years, reports bbc.co.uk. Around 1.8 mil­lion peo­ple took part in 2024.

A major­i­ty who died, once again, were unau­tho­rised pil­grims who walked long dis­tances, but this time were affect­ed by a heat­wave with tem­per­a­tures in Mec­ca climb­ing as high as 51.8C (123F).

More than three-quar­ters of those who died did not have offi­cial per­mits to be there and walked under direct sun­light with­out ade­quate pro­tec­tion, the offi­cial Sau­di news agency SPA explained. Some who died were elder­ly or chron­i­cal­ly ill. A fair num­ber came from over­seas. 

AFP news agency quot­ed an Arab diplo­mat as say­ing 658 Egyp­tians had died. Indone­sia said more than 200 of its nation­als lost their lives, while India gave a death toll of 98 peo­ple. Pak­istan, Malaysia, Jor­dan, Iran, Sene­gal, Sudan and Iraq’s autonomous Kur­dis­tan region had also con­firmed deaths.

Hajj is the annu­al pil­grim­age made by Mus­lims to the holy city of Mec­ca. All Mus­lims who are finan­cial­ly and phys­i­cal­ly able must com­plete the pil­grim­age at least once in their life­time.

Hajj per­mits are allo­cat­ed to coun­tries on a quo­ta sys­tem and dis­trib­uted to indi­vid­u­als by lot­tery. How­ev­er, the costs involved prompt many to try to take part with­out a per­mit, although they risk arrest and depor­ta­tion if caught. Before the pil­grim­age, Sau­di author­i­ties say they remove hun­dreds of thou­sands of unau­tho­rised pil­grims from Mec­ca.

(Image Cred­it: madhyamamonline.com)

Mohamed and Rah­ma Omar, two autho­rised pil­grims from the UKs Braun­stone in Leices­ter, set off for Mec­ca on June 3rd. After return­ing, Mohammed Omar, explained, “We had so many sem­i­nars before, to let us know what would hap­pen over there, we were well pre­pared.” This includ­ed the use of spe­cial­ly-designed sil­ver umbrel­las to shield peo­ple from the sun.

He con­tin­ued, “We were told there would be a lot of walk­ing. Prob­a­bly up to five hours for those rit­u­al per­for­mances. So we were aware of that as well. We were advised not to use or drink any cold drinks. We had to use mild water and mild juices.” These pre­cau­tions helped them to stay safe on their jour­ney. He remarked, “The heat was bear­able. We were already psy­cho­log­i­cal­ly pre­pared, so were not sur­prised by it.”

Health Min­is­ter, Fahd Al-Jala­jel, said efforts had been made to raise aware­ness about the dan­gers of heat stress and how pil­grims could mit­i­gate this. Health facil­i­ties treat­ed near­ly half a mil­lion pil­grims, includ­ing more than 140,000 with­out a per­mit. Some were still in hos­pi­tal for heat exhaus­tion after sev­er­al days.

He said, ”May Allah for­give and have mer­cy on the deceased. Our heart­felt con­do­lences go to their fam­i­lies.”

Sau­di Ara­bia has been crit­i­cised for not doing more to make the Hajj safer, espe­cial­ly for unreg­is­tered pil­grims who have no access to facil­i­ties such as air con­di­tioned tents and offi­cial trans­port.

The fall­out from the num­ber of deaths, par­tic­u­lar­ly involv­ing unau­tho­rised pil­grims, has been grow­ing. Egypt­ian Prime Min­is­ter Mostafa Mad­bouly stripped 16 tourism com­pa­nies of their licences this year and referred their man­agers to pros­e­cu­tors for enabling ille­gal pil­grim­ages to Mec­ca. Jor­dan also stat­ed it had detained sev­er­al trav­el agents who facil­i­tat­ed such unof­fi­cial trav­el. Mean­while, Tunisian Pres­i­dent Kais Saied fired the Min­is­ter of Reli­gious Affairs.

And why the impor­tance of using eVTOL com­pa­nies in the future to trans­port pil­grims dur­ing Hajj to tight­ly con­trol the num­bers and reduce the unau­tho­rised.

Sau­di Ara­bia: Elec­tric Air Taxis “to Trans­port Pil­grims Dur­ing Hajj”

Saudia Ara­bi­an Air­lines “to Oper­ate Fly­ing Taxis for Fer­ry­ing Pil­grims Between Jed­dah and Makkah”

Sau­di Ara­bia already has an eye on Lil­i­um for assis­tance. 

Back in Jan­u­ary Sau­di Ara­bi­an Air­lines announced plans to oper­ate fly­ing taxis to fer­ry Hajj pil­grims between King Abdu­laz­iz Inter­na­tion­al Air­port in Jed­dah and hotels in Makkah, locat­ed close to the Grand Mosque and oth­er holy places in the future. The Nation­al Air­line has signed an agree­ment with the Ger­man man­u­fac­tur­er, to pur­chase 100 Lil­i­um eVTOL jets as a part of the coun­try’s for­ward-look­ing plan.

Employ­ing elec­tric air taxis is one way of reduc­ing the num­ber of deaths. Not only can this con­trol the crowds, but reduces ille­gal par­tic­i­pants as an air­craft tick­et becomes an inte­gral part of the per­mit.

A Lil­i­um eVTOL Jet

(News Source: www.bbc.co.uk)

(Top image cred­it: Gulf News Archives)

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