CNN
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Saida Urie said it had long been her parents’ dream to take part in the Hajj, the annual religious pilgrimage that brings together Muslims from around the world to Saudi Arabia.
They spent $23,000 on an all-inclusive travel package through a Maryland-registered travel agency.
“They’ve saved their whole life for this,” she told CNN’s Fredrica Whitfield.
But what was meant to be a once-in-a-lifetime trip turned to tragedy this week when Urie learned that her mother, Isatou Tejan Urie, 65, and father, Aliew Daoussi Urie, 71, were among hundreds of pilgrims killed in extreme weather that battered the Persian Gulf countries. More than 500 people are confirmed dead, and the toll is feared to be well over 1,000.
The Woolleys are U.S. citizens from Bowie, Maryland. Mrs. Woolley recently retired as a head nurse for Kaiser Permanente in Prince George’s County, her daughter told CNN.
Speaking to CNN’s Whitfield on Saturday, Woolley said she had been in close contact with her parents in a family group chat while in Saudi Arabia, and that it was through that chat that she learned tour companies were not providing the proper transportation or certifications needed to participate in the pilgrimage. Woolley said the group her parents were traveling with, made up of up to 100 pilgrims, lacked food and supplies needed for the five- to six-day journey, a pillar of Islam.
Urie believes his parents were not “properly prepared” by the tour company and that they “did not get what they paid for.” CNN has reached out to the tour company for comment.
Family photo
Isatu Tejan Wurie and Alieu Dausy Wurie.
She last heard from her parents on Saturday, June 15, when her mother messaged her to say they had been waiting for hours for transportation to get to Mount Arafat. She believes they were in Mina at the time. The couple eventually decided to walk, messaging their daughter after more than two hours on the road.
The couple later joined fellow pilgrims and other tour groups on Mount Arafat, where they gathered to pray and reflect at the holy site. A man from the tour group contacted Saida Uri and told her that her parents had gone missing on Mount Arafat. Her father had said he could not continue the journey and had taken a break along the way. The man continued on to the top of Mount Arafat, but did not find the couple on his way down.
Uri received a death notice from the US Consulate in Jeddah, which obtained it from the Saudi Arabian Ministry of Interior, stating that her parents had “died of natural causes” on June 15. She was subsequently advised by US embassy officials that heat stroke would likely be considered a natural death.
The consulate told her that her parents had already been buried, but could not tell her exactly where.
Now Saida and her siblings are doing all they can to get answers and find where their parents are buried.
“We have asked the Saudi Arabian government to preserve the body so that we can at least go to Saudi Arabia and give it a proper burial. [their] “I want the kids to be there so they can identify the body,” she told Whitfield, “but unfortunately the body has already been buried.”
Because she doesn’t speak Arabic and is unfamiliar with the area, she hopes U.S. diplomats will meet her and her siblings there when they arrive and help them find where their parents are buried and gather their belongings. As of Saturday, diplomats had not made any arrangements to meet them in person in Saudi Arabia, she said.
The US State Department confirmed that “multiple Americans have been killed in Saudi Arabia” but declined to comment on details about the Uri family.
Extreme heat has been cited as a major factor in the hundreds of deaths and injuries reported during this year’s Hajj, with temperatures in the holy city of Mecca, the pilgrim center for Hajj pilgrimage, soaring to a record 125 degrees Fahrenheit on Monday.
With high temperatures expected at this year’s rally, the Saudi Arabian military has deployed more than 1,600 personnel to its medical corps and 30 emergency response teams to combat heatstroke, along with 5,000 medical and emergency volunteers.
Fadel Sena/AFP/Getty Images
A woman uses a handheld battery-powered fan to cool a man lying on the ground during the symbolic “stoning of the devil” ritual during the annual Hajj pilgrimage in Mina on June 16, 2024.
But other Hajj pilgrims CNN spoke to said they were less prepared, with one describing seeing fellow pilgrims walking past bodies that were unconscious and wrapped in white cloth.
The exact death toll is unknown but is expected to rise as countries around the world report their own deaths among their own citizens.
Concerns are also growing over inappropriate group tours. Egypt announced on Saturday it would revoke the licenses of 16 travel agencies that organise Hajj trips, according to state news agency Ahram Online.
More than 1.8 million people took part in this year’s Hajj pilgrimage, but it is not the first time that hundreds of pilgrims have died during the journey. In 2015, more than 700 people were killed in a crowd stampede in the Saudi Arabian city of Mina, outside Mecca. In 2006, 363 people were killed in Mina when a crowd stampede took place where pilgrims had gathered to take part in a “stoning of the devil” ritual. Last year, more than 200 people were killed.
