RI haj pilgrims set off for home today
RI haj pilgrims set off for home today
JAKARTA (JP): Indonesian haj pilgrims will begin their journey
home today, leaving behind the arduous religious rites but taking
with them sadness over 118 deaths, including two Indonesians, in
a stampede in Mina, near the holy city of Mecca, Saudi Arabia, on
Thursday.
The first arrivals are expected to land at Jakarta's Halim
Perdanakusuma airport at 6 a.m. tomorrow; at Adi Sumarmo Airport
in Surakarta, Central Java, at 5.15 p.m; at Juanda Airport in
Surabaya at 11.30 a.m.; at Hasanuddin Airport in Ujungpandang,
South Sulawesi, at 1.15 p.m.; at Sepinggan Airport in Balikpapan,
East Kalimantan, at 9.50 a.m.; and at Medan's Polonia Airport in
North Sumatra at 6.45 a.m.
The airlift of Indonesian pilgrims will be completed on May 9.
Antara reported that as of Friday, 297 Indonesian pilgrims had
died on the pilgrimage, mostly as a result of old age and
cardiovascular disease. Last year, 698 Indonesians died on the
haj.
Arif Hartanto from Garuda Indonesia said in a statement made
available yesterday that between March 6 and March 31 199,691
pilgrims had flown on 452 flights provided by the airline.
He said that 98 percent of the flights were on time, a great
improvement on last year's performance.
Tomorrow Garuda will open a round-the-clock haj information
service on (021) 809 4092 and (021) 809 0204.
On Thursday, a stampede took place on a bridge in Mina, near
Mecca, as a crowd of 700,000 pilgrims prepared to symbolically
stone the devil. Many were crushed under the feet of the tightly
packed crowd. Others fell off the bridge to their deaths.
Officials said 118 people died. Indonesian Minister of
Religious Affairs Quraish Shihab reported to President Soeharto
that two Indonesians, Asih Kartasentana and Mimi Sumiati Subandi,
were among the victims.
The deaths occurred in the place where 270 people were killed
in a haj stampede in 1994. Last year, 343 pilgrims were killed in
a fire in a camp in Mina. In 1990, 1,426 people were crushed to
death in yet another stampede.
Sumarni Salim, a friend of Asih, described the panic that led
to her friends death. "I could not think of anything else other
than to ask Allah to save me," she said, as quoted by Antara.
She said many people died on the spot, while others were taken
away by medical personnel. "I believe most of those who died were
not Indonesians, because of their very dark skin," she added.
Sumarni said that when Asih complained of stomach pains, other
pilgrims told her to perform the stoning by proxy, which is
permissible.
"But she insisted on doing it herself," Sumarni said.
Antara said the death toll could rise further given that many
of the injured were still in a critical condition. Many victims
have yet to be identified because they lost their identification
bracelets in the stampede. (swe)