Liberian pilgrims, who went to the Hajj in Saudi Arabia are reported to be safe and secured, and that they will come home safely following the Hajj.

According to a Foreign Ministry release, Liberia’s Ambassador to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, H. E. Dr. Brahima D. Kaba, reported that every Liberian in the Hajj is accounted for.

A dispatch from our Embassy in that country said several hundred people, who were participating in the religious ritual, lost their lives during a stampede at the mandatory stone throwing ceremony early Thursday morning in Mina, near Meccah.

The Liberian Embassy joins million other institutions and individuals in the Kingdom and around the world to express sincere condolences to His Majesty King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, who is the Custodian of the two Holy Mosques; the People and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, as well as to the nations that lost their citizens during this terrible event, and to pray for the souls of the departed to rest in perpetual peace in paradise.

None of the nearly one hundred Liberian pilgrims, including Ambassador Kaba, who made it to Mecca this year, was involved in the accident and all of our citizens are safe.

The Liberian pilgrims have by now completed all the main steps of their pilgrimage duties and are expected to complete the remaining ones by mid–October at which time they are expected to return home.