Addressing worshippers at the Eid al-Adha prayers in Iran’s predominantly Sunni city of Gonbad-e Kavus on Monday, Ohadi said the first anniversary of the Mina tragedy has been marked in fourteen countries with special ceremonies attended by families of the victims and by elites.
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Under close supervision from Saudi authorities, pilgrims in seamless white clothes, converged on Jamarat carrying the pebbles to perform the ritual from a three-storey bridge erected to ease congestion.
Many Muslims who did not travel to Saudi Arabia for the hajj still fasted from dawn to dusk Sunday for similar reasons.
The stoning ritual emulates the actions of Abraham in resisting the temptation to disobey.
“The Saudis’ incompetence and negligence and the unsafety imposed by them on hajj pilgrims as well as their lack of cooperation are the main and real causes of absence of Iranian Muslims in the hajj rituals this year”, the announcement underscored.
Counts by countries of repatriated bodies showed over 2,000 people may have died, more than 400 of them Iranians.
Among these is the distribution of bracelets which store pilgrims’ personal data.
The Saudi authorities redesigned the Jamarat area after two stampedes, one in 2004 and one in 2006, killed hundreds of pilgrims, and the frequency of such disasters has been greatly reduced as the government spent billions of dollars upgrading and expanding haj infrastructure and crowd control technology.
Pilgrims have told AFP they feel safe and have noticed organisational improvements.
Helicopters have been monitoring the flow of pilgrims, while police have been directing them on the ground to make sure there are no bottlenecks.
This year a new computerized system created to make the lives of pilgrims easier was set up.
Its 64,000 pilgrims have been excluded from this year’s hajj for the first time in decades after the regional rivals failed to agree on security and logistics.
More than 1.8 million gathered from sunrise at the hill and a vast surrounding plain known as Mount Arafat, about 15 kilometres (nine miles) from Mecca.
Saudi Arabia said on Sunday that it had launched a new television channel to broadcast the hajj rituals in the Farsi language of Iran.
Pilgrims come from every corner of the globe, but Indonesia – the most populous Muslim nation – has the largest quota.
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Muslims are expected to perform the hajj, one of Islam’s five pillars, at least once in their lifetimes if they are fit enough and have the financial means to do so.
