Hajj stampede: I stepped on bodies to escape death – Survivor

A survivor of the Thursday stampede at Muna Camp, a few kilometres away from the holy city of Makkah, Saudi Arabia, Magaji Falalu Zarewa, has told Saturday Nation how he watched helplessly as pilgrims died.
Zarewa, who is a pilgrim from Kano State, said he narrowly escaped death himself, adding that his Ventolin Inhaler saved him from death.
“I stepped on dead bodies to escape to a safer place to stay and recover. Lifeless bodies of pilgrims became steps to escape routes,” he stated.
Zarewa, who is a student of the Islamic University of Madina, also in Saudi Arabia, said he has been performing hajj annually since the last 10 years.
He added, “The incident occurred around few minutes after 9:00am local time. The problem started when a large crowd of people who had already stoned the Jamrat (devil) were returning through the route of people going towards the Jamarat from Muzdalifa. That caused obstruction of movement and generated heat. People started collapsing. That is the first cause of people’s death. There was no water around the area.
“Then, the major problem and what I call the major cause of death is nations whose tents are close to the scene of the stampede. Countries like Algeria and Morocco locked access roads to their tents. Because, when the heat was becoming unbearable, people wanted to enter the nearby camps to decongest the main road, get air and water to drink.
“So, people started climbing the tents. I also got a strategic pillar of the tent and climbed, then I started breathing better until people began to shake the tent and it finally collapsed on many of us. I didn’t know how I came out of the tent because people were still climbing on us. I just saw myself as people were pouring water on me.