Published: 10:34AM GMT 01 Feb 2004
At least 244 Muslim pilgrims have been trampled to death in a stampede at the annual haj pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia.
Iyad bin Amin Madani, the Saudi minister for pilgrimage affairs, confirmed the death toll after police and hospital officials said scores of people had been killed.
He said the crush lasted for more than four hours with rescue workers struggling to reach those hurt. Earlier, witnesses reported seeing at least 50 bodies lying by the roadside.
The accident happened as two million pilgrims flocked to the Jamarat Bridge over a valley near Mena to throw stones at pillars where the devil is said to have appeared to Abraham.
Hundreds of thousands of people were walking over and under the 50ft-wide bridge which spans a small valley between two cliffs with scores being crushed under the weight of people.
"There was a heavy crush among pilgrims throwing pebbles. Several pilgrims stumbled and some were killed," the state Saudi Press Agency quoted an Interior Ministry official as saying.
Police cordoned off the area around the pillar after the crush and told people to throw their pebbles from a distance.
Stampedes are a common characteristic of the haj pilgrimage with hundreds being killed in recent years.
Last year 14 people were trampled to death as huge crowds packed the area around Mena, which is on the pilgrimage route from Mecca to Mount Arafat.
Three years ago 35 people died in a crush at the Jamarat Bridge and 119 died in a similar incident in 1998.
The worst disaster to blight the haj in recent years happened in 1990 when nearly 1,500 people were killed in a stampede in a pedestrian tunnel in Mecca.
Okay, so there will be Muslims who will read this and will try to tell me that people have been trampled during sporting events in Europe or perhaps when they are running out of a discotheque during a fire or some such thing. We do not discount that one bit and it is sadly true.
But let's look at things in their true context. Sporting events and people running from chaotic happenings during secular and worldly events hardly compares to people who are supposed to make an orderly procession into and away from a religious event. You never hear of people being trampled to death going to or coming from a Billy Graham crusade; nor do you hear of people being trampled to death while going to or coming from prayer at the Wailing Wall.
The simple truth is this. You have people, no doubt honest and every day people, who adhere to a Satanic religion and base their sense of morality on a book (the Koran) that was dictated to an idol worshipping pagan by a fallen angel. Then, these same people go to throw rocks at pillars that they suppose that Satan (the god of their whole belief system) appeared to the Patriarch Abraham. These people belong to Satan and those of us who know about spiritual things know that Satan likes to toy with people. He uses his own for his service and then crushes them for amusement.
So, in closing we ask a question. Take people with a warped sense of morals and values; who worship a fallen angel (Satan) who claims to be the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; and who read the maniacal ranting of that fallen angels in a book dictated to fanatic named Mohammed. You take those same people and lead them to a place so that they can throw stones at a place that is symbolic of a visitation by a fallen angel that is the same person that they worship. And then they get trampled by their fellow believers. Gee, I wonder who is really running their lives?
And as for "the religion of peace," all I have to say is that we don't see Jews or genuine Christians flying airplanes into skyscrapers. You don't see them wearing explosive vests lined with metal and nails and blowing up innocent women and children. You don't see Jews and Christians hiding behind women and children and firing at soldiers who are standing in front of women and children to protect them. No, you only see these things coming from the adherents of Islam. The god of Islam is not Elohim and it is not Yahweh. The god of Islam is just Satan in another disguise. Jesus said that you will know people by what fruit that they produce. The fruit of Islam is the cactus; the death cap mushroom, the nightshade flower and every poisonous fruit plant and berry that the earth produces. Allah will be thrown into the eternal lake of fire by Yeshua Ha Mashiach who will vanquish all of His enemies, not with physical weapons, but by the sword of His Tongue. Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the Lord God of Israel!!