Egypt's Ministry of Health announced on Wednesday the death of the 18th Egyptian pilgrim in the holy places in Saudi Arabia, as a result of a cardiac arrest due to the crowd in the holy places. According to a statement from the ministry, the 18th dead pilgrim called Rassmia Mahmoud Ali Mohamed (62 years) from Qena governorate and was a member of the pilgrimage mission of the Ministry of Interior lottery. Khaled Mogahed, the spokesperson of the Ministry of Health said that the pilgrim has died in the holy mosque "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 57,083 patients of the Egyptian pilgrims most of them in Mecca, 134 patients were transferred to Saudi hospitals, 80 of them have left the hospital after receiving the needed 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 is divided between lottery pilgrims and pilgrims traveling via Egyptian civil society programmes.
