Mena Tragedy (7)

Welcome to the 7th part of our 8-part series on last year’s tragedy at Mena in holy Mecca during the Hajj pilgrimage that led to the martyrdom of over 2,000 pilgrims to the symbolic house of God, the holy Ka’ba, including some 500 Iranians, because of the criminal negligence of law and order by the Wahhabi regime of Saudi Arabia, which this year has violated the tenets of Islam by barring pilgrims from Iran from performing the religious obligation of Hajj.

In the previous editions, we presented to you the eye witness account of the Mena tragedy by an Iranian survivor, who exposed the mischief and gross mismanagement of the holy cities by the Saudi occupiers of Mecca and Medina.

It was in 1932, which means 84 years ago, that the spurious entity called Saudi Arabia was created by the British as a kingdom for their loyal salaried servant, Abdul-Aziz, the desert brigand from Najd, who since his adolescent years had earned notoriety for looting pilgrim caravans and murdering Muslims. The crafty British dumped their other agent, Sharif Hussain of Hijaz, thus enabling the heretical Wahhabi Saudi clan to desecrate and destroy the religious sites of the holy cities of Mecca and Medina. Ever since their occupation of Hejaz, the Godless Saudi rulers have styled themselves as ‘Custodians of the Two Holy Shrines’, through deceit and by lavishly spending on their agents abroad, the looted oil wealth of the Shi’a Muslims of the eastern part of the Arabian Peninsula. These irreligious elements, masquerade as Sunni Muslims, although they are no Sunnis, since Sunni Muslims have profound respect for the Prophet of Islam, and the Ahl al-Bayt, and will never dare to desecrate the holy shrines. In fact, the Sharifs of Hejaz and the Ottoman Turks, and before them, the Mamluks, and the Kurdish Ayyubids, who all ruled the holy cities of Mecca and Medina in turns, were Sunni Muslims, and they built and maintained the shrines of the Prophet’s Ahl al-Bayt, in addition to allowing pilgrimage to the holy sites, and managing the Hajj rituals.

However, ever since the Saudis occupied the holy cities of Mecca and Medina through bloodshed and destruction, they have only caused mischief and mismanagement. Despite the progress of communications technology and new methods of crisis management, they have proved inefficient in handling the Hajj pilgrimage. Plus they have no right to rule Hijaz or other parts of Arabia, because like their Israelite cousins, the Zionists, the Saudis are usurpers, occupiers, desecrators and destroyers of the heritage of Islam. The Saudis have even entrusted security arrangements in the holy cities to Western and Jewish agencies. Following last year’s tragedy in Mena, many questions have been raised, despite the feverish efforts of the Saudis to cover up their mischief and mismanagement through propaganda, bribes, and blackmail. There are many ambiguities concerning the exactly casualty toll of last year’s stampede in Mena. Some claim that as many as 7,000 pilgrims from various countries became victims. The most important question raised is the closure of the exits of street number 204, a narrow passage into which the Iranians and other pilgrims were herded like animals, while the other broader passages were reserved for the convoy of the Saudi Defence Minister and Deputy Heir Apparent, Mohammed bin Salman, and his entourage, which sped through cars toward Jamaraat and returned in comfort, while mocking at the plight of the pilgrims trapped and dying in street number 204. It is clear that Mohammad bin Salman, main culprit behind the war in Yemen and the massacre of Yemeni men, women, and children, was sadistically involved in the Mena massacre of pilgrims. This is further proved by the indifference of the Saudi regime and its refusal to conduct any investigation in this regard.

There were two Saudi relief centers near street number 204. Some other centers were also established in other regions of Mena. When tragedies, the first persons who rush to the scene are relief workers. But the Saudi relief workers arrived over two hours after the incident while the relief workers of some countries had come for help. Although the arrival of Saudi relief workers had no benefit for the harmed pilgrims, the Saudi forces were ordered to clean up the scene and thus all those who were fallen on the ground whether alive or dead were collected, some with bulldozers and transferred to other place. The other problem was that the Saudi regime, under various pretexts evaded cooperation with Hajj delegations of other countries for identifying and transferring the bodies of victims to their countries. In order to conceal the aspects of Mena tragedy, the regime attempted to bury the bodies in mass graves in Arabia. It is said that the Saudi regime attempted through paying money to the governments whose nationals had been killed to encourage them give up pursuit of the issue. The only country which defended the rights of its pilgrims and identified the victims and brought them back except a few was the Islamic Republic of Iran. Tehran is seeking to put on trial the perpetrators of Mena tragedy in an international court and calling for the Saudi regime’s apology and compensation for the both loss of life and the survivors of the Mena tragedy. It is for this reason that the Saudis have this year deprived the Iranian pilgrims from paying Hajj pilgrimage to the House of God. All these cases are proof of the fact that the Saudi regime should not be the caretaker of the holy cities and the Hajj pilgrimage.

AS/MG