Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, May 25, 1994                   TAG: 9405250166
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: MECCA, SAUDI ARABIA                                LENGTH: Medium

PILGRIMS KILLED IN STAMPEDE

People ``were yelling and screaming for mercy from Allah,'' Osman Taj, a pilgrim from Sudan, said Tuesday.

Hundreds of Muslims going to take part in a symbolic stoning of the devil died in a stampede Monday during the annual pilgrimage to Mecca, Islam's holiest city. Officials said Tuesday that 250 died, but witnesses, doctors and a senior Asian diplomat put the death toll above 1,000.

Thousands of pilgrims, jammed together on the pedestrian overpass, were inching toward the sacred cavern where the ritual stoning takes place when a new wave of people came surging through, Pakistani pilgrim Talaat Sharif said.

The people on the overpass had no time to make way for the newcomers, who pushed them over the railing ``and trampled others on the ground,'' Sharif said.

Taj said the chaos was aggravated by crowds running in from the opposite direction. ``They collided with each other, and those who fell were either dead or injured,'' he said. ``It was pandemonium.''

Ambulances were unable to reach the scene quickly, contributing to the high death toll, other sources said.

Saudi authorities had spent millions of dollars to build tunnels and overhead passes and to widen roads in the area after a stampede in 1990 killed 1,426 pilgrims.

Abbas Hamza Abbasi, deputy director of the Saudi Health Ministry, said people get trampled every year, but the numbers may have been higher this year because the crowd was larger. Saudi authorities reported a record 2.5 million pilgrims this year in Mecca.

Islam says that when Muslims die in Mecca, they automatically become martyrs and go straight to heaven.

Keywords:
FATALITY