Amazing how little interest about this in the Western media.
And it seems (iirc) to happen quite often.
The scale of the whole thing is extraordinary, whole industries are founded upon arranging travel to Mecca every year.
Part of the ritual involves stoning a statue.
Some of these photos (next post) are gruesome, so don't read further if that kind of thing offends.
I work with a few Muslim ladies and one of them was talking to me about it a couple of days ago. She said expect there to be thousands dead as it happens every year.
She went 3 years ago whilst 6 months pregnant and said it was the worst 5 days of her life. 10s of thousands of tents all lined up with large families in each tent. Bare minimum water and food to survive and she could see people staying around her about to die due to starvation, dehydration and exhaustion. Families from other tents in the surrounding area's were still giving all of their food and water resources to her after spotting she was pregnant.
And people still go back every year.
amazing.
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