Arabic-language social media has been flooded this week with shocking images from Saudi Arabia. The pictures and videos show people who were undertaking their once-in-a-lifetime Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca collapsed on the side of the road or slumped in wheelchairs, apparently close to death or dead. They are dressed in traditional pilgrim’s white, their faces covered with cloths. In several pictures, corpses appear to have been left where they presumably collapsed.
What started as a rumor on social media was confirmed as the weeklong Hajj pilgrimage ended: Hundreds of pilgrims have died in Saudi Arabia, evidently due to extremely high temperatures and lack of shelter or water.
