Saudi Stampede Kills 14 During Devil-Stoning Ritual
A human stampede erupted during the devil-stoning ritual at the hajj Tuesday, killing 14 people in the latest tragedy to darken the annual Muslim pilgrimage.
The ritual, in which hundreds of thousands of people throw pebbles as they file past stone pillars representing the devil, has been the scene of lethal bottlenecks in other years.
The stampede occurred after a group of pilgrims finished the ritual and left the site as another group was entering, swelling the crowd to dangerous proportions.
“We were all focusing on the area where the three stone pillars are and did not pay much attention to areas nearby in which the incident took place,” said Othman Maymani, a health official.
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