The Hajj: A history of tragedy

MINA, Saudi Arabia -- New safety measures had been introduced by Saudi Arabian authorities but they could not stop more deaths during the annual Hajj.

Almost two million Muslims from all over the world converge on Mecca and Medina -- the two holiest places in Islam -- to perform the ritual.

But the pilgrimage turned to tragedy once again with the reported death of up to 35 people -- killed in a stampede during the symbolic stoning of Satan ritual.

The ritual has been a source of tragedy in the past.

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The most deadly Hajj-related incident was a 1990 stampede in which 1,426 pilgrims were killed.

In 1998, 180 people died in a stampede near Mecca at the end of the Hajj while a stampede in 1994 killed 270 pilgrims.

In 1989, bombs exploded near the Grand Mosque in Mecca, killing one pilgrim and wounding 16 others.

In 1987, some 400 people, mainly Iranian Shi'ite pilgrims, were killed in clashes with Saudi security forces during anti-Western protests in Mecca.

In 1991, a chartered airliner carrying pilgrims home to Nigeria crashed after the Hajj, killing 261. In March 1991, a plane crash in northern Saudi Arabia killed 91 Senegalese soldiers returning from a trip to Mecca which had been a reward for their service in the U.S.-led coalition that drove Iraqi forces from Kuwait in the Gulf War a month earlier.

A fire in Mina, the city where the stoning takes place, tore through the sprawling, overcrowded tent city in 1997, trapping and killing more than 340 pilgrims and injuring 1,500.

The pilgrims go to Mina from Mecca to cast small pebbles at three columns of stone that symbolise the devil.

The pillars are at the centre of giant ramps built to accommodate the huge crowds of pilgrims who must complete the ritual by dusk.

Muslim tradition says it was here that the devil tried to tempt the Prophet Abraham to disobey God by refusing to sacrifice his son, a legend common to Islam, Christianity and Judaism.

Tradition says God instructed Abraham to sacrifice a sheep instead -- Muslims around the world now follow suit, sacrificing sheep, camels and cattle to mark Eid al-Adha, or feast of sacrifice.

The Associated Press & Reuters contributed to this report.

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