Seven Indonesian pilgrims confirmed dead in Mina

Seven Indonesian pilgrims confirmed dead in Mina

JAKARTA (JP): The government has determined the identity of
seven Indonesians who died in last week's stampede during the
Moslem pilgrimage in Mecca, but officials have not ruled out the
possibility that there could be more.

Identifying the victims was a difficult process because the
bodies had now been buried and that some of the earlier names of
victims supplied by the Saudi authorities were not Indonesians.

Two missing Indonesian pilgrims who were feared to be among
the victims of the stampede have been found alive.

The Saudi authorities said that 270 pilgrims died as thousands
of people crowded into an enclosure in Mina to hurl stones at
three piles of rocks symbolizing the devil -- one of the most
physically demanding rituals in the haj pilgrimage.

The Saudis blamed the incident on the pilgrims, saying that
the crowd disregarded police warnings, and instead rushed in to
take part in ritual which had gotten out of control.

The Minister of Religious Affairs Tarmizi Taher is facing
criticism once again for having previously announced that there
were no Indonesians among the victims. He responded by pointing
out that the government was moving cautiously in dealing with the
case and would only confirm a person is dead based on the
issuance of death certificate.

Tarmizi said this process of checking and rechecking is
essential to prevent proclaiming a person dead when they may
still be alive or simply missing.

The minister in a press conference at his office on Saturday,
acknowledged that he may have spoken too soon on Wednesday when
he said that there were no Indonesian victims, a statement he
made based on reports from officials in Saudi Arabia.

"I want to extend my apologies, especially to the relatives of
victims of the Mina tragedy," he said.

Minister of Information Harmoko, who lead the Indonesian haj
contingent of 165,000 pilgrims, also offered his apology and
sympathies to the relatives of the victims during the same press
conference.

On Saturday, Tarmizi reported to President Soeharto about the
government's efforts to determine the number of Indonesians who
died in the Mina tragedy and discover their identities.

The Saudi authorities had earlier said that there were six
Indonesians among the 127 victims whose nationalities had been
identified. The Saudi's are still trying to establish the
nationalities of 143 others but are having problems because their
faces and bodies were disfigured during the stampede.

"This is proving to be a difficult situation," he said.

The minister was already the target of criticisms earlier this
month for the way he handled the question of Indonesian pilgrims
who are making their own arrangement and bypassing the
government's program.

Quota

Tarmizi was under criticism before the Mina stampede, because
the number of Indonesian pilgrims on this year's haj exceeded the
160,000 quota allocated by the Saudi government. This is the
first time that the number of Indonesian pilgrims has exceeded
the quota.

During the meeting on Saturday, President Soeharto stressed
the importance of Indonesia abiding by the quota, according to
Tarmizi. "The Arafah and Mina regions have a limited number
spaces," Soeharto said, as quoted by Tarmizi.

Tarmizi said he had ordered the Indonesian embassy, the
Consulate General in Riyadh and to the Director General for
Islamic and Haj Affairs Amidhan, who is in Saudi Arabia, to
continue to dig for information about the possibility of more
Indonesian victims.

Meanwhile, as the Indonesian pilgrims continued to return, the
Ministry of Religious Affairs yesterday said that the total
number of Indonesians who died during the course of the
pilgrimage has reached 372. Most of them died of old age, heart
attacks, heat stroke and other illnesses. Last year, 394 out of
some 123,000 Indonesian pilgrims died. (pwn/rid)