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)