Manila: No Filipinos were among the more than 700 who died during a stampede at the Haj, senior officials said.
“Not one Filipino Muslim was listed among the dead in Makkah,” said the country’s Jeddah-based Consul General Imelda Panolong in a statement that reached Manila’s foreign affairs office on Friday.
“We have gone to hospitals near the area of the stampede. Our monitoring is ongoing,” said Panolong, who promised to give updates.
None of the 8,130 Filipinos who had registered to go to Makkah this year were injured in the stampede, Panolong said.
Earlier, Foreign Affairs spokesman Charles Jose said in Manila that his office was “still verifying reports that one local Filipino pilgrim died in the stampede last Thursday”.
The reported death “could not be verified”, admitted Jose who did not issue an updated statement late Friday night.
National Commission on Muslim Filipinos’ Secretary, Yasmin Busran-Lao, assigned as leader of the Filipino Muslims who went on the pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia this year, also said that the number of Filipinos to Makkah this year was the largest when compared to previous years.
Like Panolog, Busran-Lao did not explain how Filipino Muslim pilgrims managed to escape harmduring the stampede.
