JAKARTA - Minister of Religion (Menag) Yaqut Cholil Qoumas revealed that 748 Hajj pilgrims from Indonesia in 2023 died in Saudi Arabia. The death rate is the highest since 2017.
"As of today, 748 Hajj participants have died. Indeed, this is the highest in the pilgrimage process since 2017," said Minister of Religion Yaqut after welcoming the return of Hajj officers at Soekarno Hatta International Airport (Soetta), Tangerang, Thursday, July 27, which was confiscated by Antara.
As is known, the number of Hajj participants who died in 2017 was reported to have reached 438 people, or more about 28 percent compared to the previous year's Hajj season of 342 people.
He understood that the incident considering that the number of pilgrims from the elderly (elderly) reached 67,000 people was a very large number.
In addition, said Yaqut, the weather in Saudi Arabia which is approaching a temperature of 50 degrees Celsius, especially in Arafah, an average of 44 degrees Celsius is very risky to trigger the dehydration of Hajj participants. The number of pilgrims who died this year became an evaluation material for the Ministry of Religion to improve services in the following wave of the pilgrimage the following year.
"We have conducted an evaluation. We have spoken with the Head of the Hajj Center of the Ministry of Health so that the mechanism in the future regarding health istitha'ah is also part of the improvement," he said.
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For example, he continued, before prospective pilgrims pay the cost of Hajj, it is necessary to do a health check first. Yaqut said, if declared healthy and strong for departure, then repayment will be carried out.
"Now it's not, first repay the cost of the pilgrimage, then there will be a health check," he said.
According to Yaqut, certainty in the health aspect needs to be preceded before paying the hajj fee in order to ensure the participants' stamina to carry out worship.
"Because we know, the pilgrimage is physical worship, of course it requires mature, and excellent physical performance," he said.
In addition, Yaqut also encourages relevant stakeholders to continue to prioritize the elderly pilgrims who have continued to experience an increasing trend of hajj queues.
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