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Two Indians among 107 killed in crane collapse at Mecca Grand Mosque

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collapse Mecca Grand Mosque

Riyadh: At least 107 people died when a massive construction crane crashed into Mecca’s Grand Mosque, with scores more injured, Saudi authorities said, days before the annual hajj pilgrimage.

The civil defence agency said on Twitter that emergency teams were sent to the scene after a “crane fell at the Grand Mosque,” one of Islam’s most revered sites.

That came about an hour after it tweeted that Mecca was “witnessing medium to heavy rains,” and pictures on social media showed lightning.

Ahmed bin Mohammad al-Mansoori, spokesman for the two holy mosques, was quoted by the official Saudi Press Agency as saying part of a crane collapsed at 5:10 pm (1410 GMT) “as a result of strong winds and heavy rains.”

Abdel Aziz Naqoor, who said he works at the mosque, told AFP he saw the crane fall after being hit by the storm.

“If it weren’t for Al-Tawaf bridge the injuries and deaths would have been worse,” he said, referring to a covered walkway that surrounds the holy Kaaba, which broke the crane’s fall.

The Kaaba is a massive cube-shaped structure at the centre of the mosque towards which Muslims worldwide pray and which has a major role in the hajj.

Pictures of the incident on Twitter showed bloodied bodies strewn across a courtyard where the top part of the crane, which appeared to have bent or snapped, had crashed into the building.

A video on YouTube showed people screaming and rushing around right after a massive crash was heard and as fog engulfed the city.

The incident occurred as hundreds of thousands of Muslims from all over the world gather for the annual hajj pilgrimage expected to begin on September 21.

The Grand Mosque is usually at its most crowded on Fridays, the Muslim weekly day of prayer.

Many faithful would have been gathered there ahead of evening maghrib prayers, which occurred about an hour after the tragedy.

Two Indians killed

The Ministry of External Affairs said that there were two Indians among the 107 people killed in the collapse. Around 15 Indian nationals were injured and were being treated in hospitals, said the statement posted on Twitter.

Pleas to donate blood

The governor of Mecca region, Prince Khaled al-Faisal, has ordered an investigation into the incident and was heading to the mosque, the official @makkahregion account on Twitter said.

Irfan al-Alawi, co-founder of the Mecca-based Islamic Heritage Research Foundation, compared the carnage to that caused by a bomb.

He suggested authorities were negligent by having a series of cranes overlooking the mosque.

“They do not care about the heritage, and they do not care about health and safety,” he told AFP.

Alawi is an outspoken critic of redevelopment at the holy sites, which he says is wiping away tangible links to the Prophet Mohammed.

Online activists created a hashtag on Twitter urging Mecca residents to donate blood at hospitals in the area.

No details were immediately available on the nationalities of the victims.

Iran’s official IRNA news agency, quoting the head of the Hajj Organisation, said 15 Iranian pilgrims were among those injured.

Most of them were treated as outpatients, Saeid Ohadi said.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, whose country is home to tens of millions of Muslims, took to Twitter to express his sorrow over the incident.

“My thoughts & prayers are with the families of those who lost their lives in the crane crash in Mecca. I wish the injured a quick recovery” he said on his @narendramodi account.

Britain’s David Cameron also used the micro-blogging site to say: “My thoughts and prayers are with those who have lost loved ones at #mecca today”.

A massive project is under way to expand the area of the mosque by 400,000 square metres (4.3 million square feet), allowing it to accommodate up to 2.2 million people at once.

Though marred in the past by deadly incidents including floods, stampedes and fires, the hajj has become nearly incident-free in recent years because of multi-billion dollar investments.

These have included transport networks and other infrastructure to facilitate movement of the crowds.

SPA said that almost 800,000 pilgrims had arrived by Friday for the hajj, which all able-bodied Muslims are expected to perform if they have the means to do so.

Last year, just over two million people took part.

(AFP)

Saudi crane collapse kills 107 in Mecca Grand Mosque

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Accident which also injured more than 230 people, just weeks before Hajj pilgrimage, blamed on violent thunderstorms.

Saudi crane collapse

by Al Jazeera

At least 107 people have been killed after a crane toppled over at Mecca’s Grand Mosque, less than two weeks before Islam’s annual Hajj pilgrimage.

In addition to the deaths, 238 people were wounded in Friday’s disaster, according to Saudi Arabia’s Civil Defence Authority.

The Saudi Press Agency quoted a spokesperson for the two holy mosques as saying that the crane was brought down by strong wind and heavy rain.

Pictures circulating on social media showed pilgrims in bloodied robes and debris from a part of the crane that appeared to have crashed through a ceiling.

Other pictures showed queues of Saudi men volunteering to donate blood for the injured. “All those who were wounded and the dead have been taken to hospital. There are no casualties left at the location,” General Suleiman al-Amr, director-general of the Civil Defence Authority, told Al Ikhbariya television. He said strong wind and rains had uprooted trees and rocked cranes in the area. “The crane collapsed near Al-Salam gate on the upper side of Al-Masaa area, and that caused the collapse of a small part of Al-Masaa and another section of Al-Mataf, the bridge area around the holy Kaaba,” Amr told Saudi state TV.

Official statement

A statement by a spokesperson for the administration of the mosques in Mecca and Medina said the crane toppled in the part of the Grand Mosque where worshippers circle the Kaaba – the black-clad cube towards which the world’s 1.6 billion Muslims face to pray. Al Jazeera’s Hasan Patel, reporting from Mecca, said witnesses told him that the crane fell on the third floor of the Grand Mosque at around 5.30pm on Friday.

He said the mosque was packed even though the incident happened before the 6.30pm prayer.

“Dozens of ambulances headed to the site. The authorities closed off the area shortly afterwards,” he said. “This whole place is already a giant construction site. What made it worse is that around 5.30pm there was severe rain and it was just gushing down the road. “I am surrounded by people who are grieving. The mood here is of sadness.” Saudi authorities go to great lengths to prepare for the millions of Muslims who converge on Mecca to perform the sacred pilgrimage. Last year, they reduced the numbers permitted to make the Hajj pilgrimage on safety grounds because of construction work to enlarge the Grand Mosque.

Prone to disasters

The Hajj, one of the largest religious gatherings in the world, has been prone to disasters in the past, mainly from stampedes as pilgrims rush to complete rituals and return home. Hundreds of pilgrims died in such a crush in 2006. Saudi authorities have since spent vast sums to expand the main Hajj sites and improve Mecca’s transport system, in an effort to prevent more disasters.

Security services often ring Islam’s sacred city with checkpoints and other measures to prevent people arriving for the pilgrimage without authorisation.

Those procedures, aimed at reducing crowd pressure which can lead to stampedes, fires and other hazards, have been intensified in recent years as security threats grow throughout the Middle East.

Richard Angwin, Al Jazeera’s senior weather presenter, said the autumn period is when half of Mecca’s thunderstorms occur, so “it was no great surprise that there were thunderstorms in the area”.

“The area of low pressure which brought sandstorms across the Levant region moved further south, allowing hot, moist air to develop into thunderstorms along the mountains bordering the Red Sea, and some of those drifted northwards across Mecca,” he said.

Only 1 in 4 Indian applicants will make it to Hajj this year

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Mumbai: Only one in four of Indian Muslims desiring to perform Hajj will be travelling to Saudi Arabia this year. The 20% reduction in Hajj quota ordered by the Saudi government is causing a huge backlog of pilgrims who want to perform the “once-in-a-lifetime” ritual.

Muslim leaders have demanded an increase in quota for India as the latest census data shows a rise in Muslim population (172.2 million or 14.23% of India’s population). The Saudi government allows one pilgrim per 1,000 Muslims in a country to go for the Haj.

The Haj Committee of India said around 3.83 lakh people applied for Haj 2015 but only 1.20 lakh pilgrims are travelling through the Haj Committee to Saudi Arabia to perform the rituals in the last week of this month. Around 36,000 are using private tour operators (PTOs) to fly to Saudi Arabia. “Since 2013, the Saudi government has cut 20% quota of pilgrims from every country as the expansion of the holy mosque in Mecca is underway and the administration wants fewer pilgrims there,” said Haj Committee CEO Ataur Rahman.

Muslim leaders want India’s ministry of external affairs to take up the issue with Saudi’s Haj ministry. “Thousands of Indian Muslims who fulfill criteria to go for the Haj are being denied it as the quota has reduced. The external affairs ministry must intervene and communicate this growing concern of Indian Muslims to the Saudi authorities,” said Congress MLA Amin Patel.

“We have told the external affairs ministry to look into the issue for the last few years. Haj is one of the pillars of Islam and performing it is mandatory for Muslims who can afford it. The government should take up the issue with the Saudi authorities and get our quota increased,” former minority department minister and MLA Arif Naseem Khan said.

(Agencies)

13 of 20 Indians reported killed in Yemen are alive, 7 missing: MEA

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New Delhi: At least seven out of 20 Indian crew members are missing after their boats came under aerial bombardment while plying between Somalia and Yemen, External Affairs Ministry said today.

Disputing reports that 20 Indian nationals were killed in air strikes by Saudi-led coalition forces at Yemen’s Hodeidah port, the MEA said 13 Indians crew members “are alive and 7 are reported missing”.

“We have seen media reports about the death of Indian nationals in Yemen. Indian Embassy officials in Djbouti are in touch with local contacts and we have ascertained that there were two boats one of which was plying between Berbera (Somalia) and Mokha (Yemen),” the External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson said.

The boats came under aerial bombardment in the afternoon of 8 September. The boats were carrying a total of 20 Indian crew members of which 13 are alive and 7 are reported missing, he said, adding, no other information is currently available regarding the identities of the Indian nationals.

“Embassy officials are in constant touch with local authorities and are also due to meet with the boat owner today at which point of time more information would be available,” he said.

Some media reports, quoting residents and fishermen, yesterday claimed that at least 20 Indian nationals were killed in air strikes by Saudi-led coalition forces on fuel smugglers at Yemen’s Hodeidah port.

They claimed two boats were hit in the attack on an area near the port. India does not have Embassy in Yemen, which was shut down in April after evacuation of its nationals.

(PTI)

Saudi coalition airstrike hits Sana’a orphanage

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sanaa_yemen

by dpa GmbH

An airstrike launched by the Saudi-led alliance in Yemen appears to have struck an orphanage Saturday morning in Sana’a’s al-Nahda neighbourhood, killing and injuring an unknown number of people, local medical sources told dpa.

There have been contradicting reports about the casualties, and whether they include children or not. No further details were immediately available.

Separately, a residential building was bombarded by an airstrike earlier in the day in the Hadda area, also in Sana’a, killing three and injuring five civilians, local sources said.

Meanwhile, sources at the Health Ministry said a state of emergency was announced due to the rising number of casualties from mistaken strikes upon civilian sites since Friday.

“Due to the ongoing airstrikes, there is no way to make an exact estimation of the number of the dead and injured at this stage, but they are dozens,” a source at the ministry told dpa.

Airstrikes against Houthi-held military sites in Sana’a and other parts of Yemen have intensified since Friday, but that has increased the possibility of them mistakenly targeting civilian areas.

Saudi Arabia and fellow Sunni partners have mounted since March an air campaign in Yemen against Shiite Houthi rebels, who still control large parts of the country.

Saudi troops enter northern Yemen after Houthi clashes

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Saudi commanders insist incursion into northern Yemen is temporary, as troops take up positions overlooking Jizan.

yemen-airstrike

by Al Jazeera

Saudi Arabian troops have crossed into northern Yemen for the first time since the conflict with Houthi rebels began in March.

Footage published on Wednesday showed soldiers taking positions in a mountainous area overlooking the southern Saudi province of Jizan.

Houthi shelling and rocket attacks on the border have killed dozens of Saudi soldiers, including a general on Sunday.

Saudi commanders insist the incursions are temporary.

A Saudi-led coalition has launched air strikes at rebel positions in Yemen but the the Houthis and their allies, soldiers loyal to the former president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, insist they are still a capable fighting force.

The Houthis have posted video online of what they say are rebel commandos storming a Saudi border post.

The video shows the fighters capturing the building after heavy fighting and blowing up military vehicles, only to withdraw when Saudi fighter jets launched an air raid in the area.

In July, Popular Resistance fighters fighting on the side of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi’s forces expelled the Houthis and their allies from the southern port city of Aden, whose capture by the rebels sparked the aerial campaign by the Arab coalition.

More than 4,300 people have been killed in the conflict in Yemen, according to the UN, almost half of those civilians.

At least 50 people have died in Houthi attacks on positions inside Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Arabia rejects Russian calls to work with Assad against IS

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Saudi Arabia Russian

by Dawn

Moscow: Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister on Tuesday poured cold water on Russian calls to join forces with the Syrian authorities against the self-styled Islamic State, insisting it would never work with President Bashar al Assad.

Moscow — one of Assad’s few remaining allies — has called for coordination between the Syrian government and members of an international coalition fighting the extremist group, which controls swathes of territory in Syria and Iraq.

But Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al Jubeir insisted there would be no cooperation with the Syrian government after meeting Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov in Moscow.

“As for a coalition in which Saudi Arabia would participate with the government of Syria, then we need to exclude that. It is not part of our plans,” Jubeir said in comments translated into Russian.

“Our position has not changed… there is no place for Assad in the future of Syria,” Jubeir said.

“We think that Bashar al Assad is part of the problem, not part of the solution.” Saudi Arabia is part of a US-led coalition that began an air campaign against IS in Syria last September.

Russia supports Assad while Saudi Arabia insists he must step down to help end a four-year conflict that has cost over 240,000 lives.

Suicide attack targets security forces at Saudi mosque

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At least 13 killed after suicide bomber blows himself up in southwest region bordering Yemen, interior ministry says.

Saudi mosque

by Al Jazeera

Saudi Interior ministry has said that 13 people were killed in a suicide attack on a mosque in the country’s southwest region bordering Yemen.

Thursday’s attack in a mosque belonging to the emergency forces in the city of Abha in Asir province also injured at least nine others, the ministry added.

Earlier, state media said 17 people were killed.

Saudi Television said initial information indicated that the blast occurred after a suicide bomber detonated his explosive belt.

It was too early to say who may have carried out the attack, an interior ministry spokesman told AFP news agency.

There was also no immediate claim of responsibility, but groups affiliated with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) have been blamed for recent attacks in Saudi.

Thursday’s bombing was the most serious in recent months against Saudi security forces, who have been targeted in attacks blamed on the Islamic State group.

In mid-July, a car bomb exploded at a security checkpoint near a prison in the capital Riyadh. It killed the 19-year-old driver and wounded two policemen, the interior ministry said.

In the southwestern city of Taif on July 3, a policeman was gunned down during a raid in which three people were arrested and flags of the ISIL group found, police said earlier.

On successive Fridays in May suicide bombings at mosques of the minority Shiite community in Eastern Province killed a total of 25 people.

A group affiliated with ISIL calling itself Najd Province — which takes its name from the region around Riyadh — claimed those attacks as well as another suicide bombing that killed 26 people at a Shia mosque in Kuwait in June.

Anti-Houthi forces recapture Yemen’s largest army base

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Backed by Saudi-led air strikes, forces fighting on the side of President Hadi recapture southern al-Anad base.

Spread over 40 square kilometres, al-Anad houses a military airport, a war college, and an arms depot [Reuters]

Spread over 40 square kilometres, al-Anad houses a military airport, a war college, and an arms depot [Reuters]

by Al Jazeera

Forces battling Houthi rebels in Yemen say they have captured the country’s largest military base following intense clashes which left dozens killed.

In a statement on Monday, the exiled government claimed the complete control of al-Anad base, which is in Lahej province in southern Yemen.

“With the help and back-up of the Arab-led coaltion, this achievement was possible,” the statement said.

Troops were also supported by Popular Resistance Committees who have sided with the government in the fight against the Houthis.

The Houthis’ loss of the base deals a significant blow to the Shia rebel group, which has seized large parts of the country but recently lost control of the southern port city of Aden.

Nasser Hadour, an officer in the Popular Resistance, told Al Jazeera that their forces were also able to enter another military base between al-Sader and al-Madina al-Khadra in Lahej province.

Al Jazeera’s Hashem Ahelbarra, who has covered Yemen extensively, explained that while the Popular Resistance Committees are against the Houthis, they form a loose umbrella group whose members do not necessarily back exiled President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi.

“They have been forced together by the Houthi threat but they have different agendas. Many of them are southern secessionists who in fact see Hadi as a threat,” he said.

The Yemeni army has been split since the Houthis’ advance last year. Some units backing deposed president Ali Abdullah Saleh are fighting alongside the Houthis, while others remain loyal to Hadi.

“The Saudi-led coalition is training anti-Houthi forces, providing them with new weapons to build a new army from scratch,” our correspondent said. “Their aim is to maintain Yemen united under one leader and a professional army. But that aim will depend on how the different factions get along. Yemen remains divided along regional and sectarian ties.”

Houthi rebels and its allies had been in control of al-Anad since March.

Spread over 40 square kilometres, the base houses a military airport, a war college, and an arms depot.

It was previously used by US forces as an intelligence gathering hub and base for drone attacks on al-Qaeda in Yemen.

The assault by anti-Houthi forces began after new weapons, including armoured vehicles that had been supplied by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, arrived to reinforce fighters.

At least 50 Houthis and troops loyal to Hadi were killed in fighting for the base, military sources told Al Jazeera. At least 23 Popular Resistance fighters were also killed, the sources added.

There was no word from the Houthis on the outcome of the battle, but the Houthi-run Saba news agency said earlier that Saudi-led air raids had repeatedly struck the military base.

Al-Anad lies on road to Taiz, the next target for the coalition after their recapture of Aden.

The military says controlling al-Anad will help the push to recapture Taiz and the southern provinces.

Hadi remains in Saudi Arabia, where he fled in March as the Houthis closed in on his refuge in Aden.

The Houthis broke out of their northern strongholds and seized control of the capital Sanaa in September, plunging Yemen into another bout of conflict.

While backed by US, Saudi coalition accused of war crime in Yemen

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New report from Human Rights Watch investigates bombings that killed at least 65 civilians in the city of Mokha on Friday

A residence that houses workers of the Mokha Steam Power Plant and their families after it was destroyed by Saudi-led coalition bombings on 24, 2015. (Photo: Ole Solvang/Human Rights Watch)

A residence that houses workers of the Mokha Steam Power Plant and their families after it was destroyed by Saudi-led coalition bombings on 24, 2015. (Photo: Ole Solvang/Human Rights Watch)

by Sarah Lazare, Common Dreams

The Saudi Arabia-led military coalition—which is backed by the United States—committed an “apparent war crime” when they bombed residential housing in the Yemeni city of Mokha on Friday, killing at least 65 civilians and wounding dozens more, Human Rights Watch declared on Monday.

“The Saudi-led coalition repeatedly bombed company housing with fatal results for several dozen civilians,” said Ole Solvang, senior emergencies researcher for HRW, of the attack that claimed ten children among its victims. “With no evident military target, this attack appears to be a war crime.”

However, HRW said there are no signs that Yemen’s government or any coalition partners are investigating the attack, which struck residential compounds that house family and workers of the Mokha Steam Power Plant on Friday.

“Again and again, we see coalition airstrikes killing large numbers of civilians, but no signs of any investigation into possible violations,” said Solvang.

Researchers with the rights group who visited the aftermath of the attack saw craters and destroyed buildings that indicate multiple bombs “had struck the plant’s main residential compound, which housed at least 200 families.” Another bomb tore through a separate compound that also housed temporary workers.

“After the third strike the entire building began to collapse on top of us,” Wajida Ahmed Najid, the wife of a plant employee who lived in one of the compounds targeted, told researchers. “Then I knew we needed to leave because it was not safe to stay. I grabbed my girls and we started running in the direction of the beach, but as we were running pieces of metal were flying everywhere and one hit Malak, my 9-year-old daughter. Thank God she is going to be okay. While we were running I saw bodies, seven of them, just lying on the ground, in pieces.”

HRW noted that the civilian death toll could be higher than 65, with many people still reported missing. In the following video, resident after resident testifies that there was no reason for the coalition to target them. “This is a dirty war,” said a resident of one of the buildings whose name is not revealed in the video. Warning: video contains disturbing images.

The Saudi-led military coalition includes the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Morocco, Qatar, and Sudan. While the United States and United Kingdom both say they are not formally part of the coalition, they are both providing direct assistance—including logistics and intelligence—as well as serving as major weapons suppliers for the campaign.

Since the bombing campaign began nearly four months ago, the coalition has bombed homes, schools, warehouses storing humanitarian aid, and refugee camps, killing at least  1,693 civilians and wounding another 3,829,according to the estimates of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. The bombings and naval blockade have touched off an ever-worsening humanitarian crisis as residents of the impoverished country arecut off from water, food, and medical aid.

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