Khaberni - Thousands of pilgrims began leaving the city of Mecca on Friday after completing the Hajj rituals amid extremely hot weather and escalating regional tension.
This year, over 1.7 million pilgrims from 165 countries participated in the Hajj season, one of the five pillars of Islam and one of the largest religious gatherings in the world, despite the warlike climate hovering over the Middle East.
This year, the rituals that attract Muslims from various parts of the Islamic world, including Iran, followed a wave of attacks carried out by Tehran on targets in Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Arab states in response to an attack by the United States and Israel on February 28.
More than 30,000 Iranians performed the Hajj, but this number is about one-third of the expected number, which was 86,000.
On Friday, tens of thousands of pilgrims completed the third day of the stoning of the Jamarat in Mina, before boarding buses towards the Grand Mosque in Mecca to perform the "farewell Tawaf".
The streets of Mecca were flooded with buses carrying thousands of departing pilgrims, while others walked under colorful umbrellas to protect against the sun and the heat which exceeded forty degrees Celsius during the Hajj this year.
In previous years, the Hajj witnessed deadly incidents including stampedes, but the extreme heat posed the biggest challenge this year.
The Saudi Red Crescent reported on Thursday that its teams had provided emergency services to "more than 83,000 people since the beginning of the Hajj season until Thursday".
The Saudi authorities established health facilities and mobile clinics, while the Ministry of Health announced the deployment of more than 50,000 medical staff and 3,000 ambulances to provide care for the pilgrims.
No significant incidents were recorded this year.
This year, there was a noticeable decrease in pilgrims sleeping on the roads, which clearly indicates the success of the Saudi authorities in eliminating the phenomenon of irregular pilgrims.
This comes after two years when this phenomenon, alongside high temperatures reaching nearly 50 degrees Celsius at that time, resulted in the death of 1,300 pilgrims, the majority of whom were irregular pilgrims.
