Egypt's Ministry of Health announced on Wednesday the death of the 15th Egyptian pilgrim in the holy places in Saudi Arabia, as a result of a cardiac arrest due to the crowdedness in the holy places. According to a statement from the ministry, the 15th dead pilgrim, named Atyat Mohamed Said Ahmed (75 years) from Al-Wadi Al-Gadid governorate, was member of the pilgrimage mission of the Ministry of Interior lottery. Khaled Mogahed, the spokesperson of the Ministry of Health, said that the pilgrim died in the holy Al-Haram Mosque in Mecca and was transferred to the hospital for the needed procedures. Moreover, the ministry announced that the clinic of the Egyptian mission received 36,733 patients from among the Egyptian pilgrims—most of them in Mecca; 84 patients were transferred to Saudi hospitals, and 48 of them have left the hospital after receiving the required medical care. Last year, 110 Egyptian pilgrims died during the pilgrimage season; 105 of them died in Mecca, while the rest were in Medina. The total number of Egyptian pilgrims this year is 78,000, including 36,000 pilgrims traveling through tourism companies, while the rest are divided between lottery pilgrims and pilgrims traveling via Egyptian civil society programmes.
