President Hassan Rouhani was among several senior officials attending a repatriation ceremony Saturday at the Tehran airport as the plane arrived.
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Iran has blamed Saudi “mismanagement” for the stampede.
More bodies were expected to be flown home later yesterday, but Iran’s health minister said not all of the Iranian dead had yet been found and many were thought to be lying unidentified in sealed containers.
The bodies of the remaining victims, a few of whom have not been identified yet, are kept in cold storage facilities in Mecca and Jeddah.
Besides stampede incidents, pilgrims had also perished through other disasters over the years.
State TV said another flight was due later in the day.
Medical personnel tend to a wounded pilgrim following a crush caused by large numbers of people pushing at Mina.
Saudi Arabia has spent billion of dollars on hajj safety measures. Rouhani was speaking in ceremonies marking the transfer of bodies of 104 Iranian pilgrims killed. If Saudi Arabia can not handle the scrutiny and answer the challenging questions, it is time to re-evaluate its roles and responsibilities for the Hajj.
Iran has led a chorus of worldwide criticism directed at Saudi Arabia’s response to the incident, saying its diplomats were not given access to victims until days after the stampede.
Buhari said his country had lost a prominent journalist, a professor “and others” in the tragedy.
Meanwhile, seven injured Pakistani pilgrims are being treated in Saudi Arabia while 60 are still believed to be missing.
Saudi Arabia’s latest toll, released September 26, put the death toll at 769 pilgrims.
Deadly stampedes during Hajj is nothing new as at least 364 pilgrims had died during a stampede in Mina in 2006. Egypt has 126 dead and 110 missing, and Indonesia has 91 dead.
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This occurred mainly after Tehran seized the opportunity to call for broader Islamic management of the hajj, accusing the Saudis of failure, and later when Iran’s supreme leader demanded an Islamic probe into what actually happened.
