The 65-year-old woman from Central Java complained of feeling dizzy before she collapsed in the airplane that took her and her husband from Surakarta to Medina, Saudi Arabia.
Indonesian Muslims circumambulate around a replica of the Kaaba, Islam’s holiest shrine, at Almahmudah Manasik Training Centre in South Tangerang, Banten province on May 4, 2024.
Pilgrim from Banjarnegara regency, Central Java, died on May 3 after landing in Saudi Arabia, as hundreds of thousands of Indonesian pilgrims started to arrive for the annual haj under the scorching heat of summer in the Middle Eastern country.
The pilgrim, identified as 65-year-old Daimah, died at 3:12 a.m. local time when she was on a flight from the Surakarta haj embarkation point to Medina, Saudi Arabia. Doctors issued a death certificate for Daimah a day later.
“In the certificate, it was written that she died because of dehydration. But the actual cause of death was perhaps a heart attack,” Surakarta Haj Management Committee (PPIH) spokesperson Gentur Rachma Indriadi said on Monday, as quoted by kompas.com.
Another Surakarta PPIH official Abdul Basir said that her husband claimed that Daimah looked well during the flight and never complained about any health issues.
The husband, Karno Karta Semi, said that his wife asked to use the restroom before getting off the plane. After coming out of the restroom, she complained of feeling dizzy and collapsed.
“The medical team responded immediately, but they could not save her,” Basir said, as quoted by tribunnews.com.
A prayer for the late Daimah was performed at the Nabawi Mosque in Medina before her body was buried at the Baqi cemetery in the city. Karno accompanied Daimah’s body throughout the funeral process.
Read also: Indonesia starts sending haj pilgrims to Saudi Arabia
Basir asserted that the government would guarantee the rights of haj pilgrims who die during the pilgrimage, including insurance coverage for their families and having someone perform haj on their behalf, as per a religious affairs ministery regulation.
Daimah became the first Indonesian pilgrim to die in Saudi Arabia ahead of this year’s haj season, in which 221,000 pilgrims from Indonesia will perform religious rituals for more than a month.
Aside from Daimah, who died after arriving in Saudi Arabia, other pilgrims also died before departing for the Middle Eastern country.
Sainuddin Bin Tulo, 71, from Bantaeng regency in South Sulawesi died a day before his scheduled departure for Saudi Arabia. He was admitted to a hospital after complaining of having difficulties breathing, while other pilgrims from the regency were admitted to the haj dormitory to prepare for their departure.
Religious Affairs Ministry Bantaeng official Muhammad Tahir said that Sainuddin’s suitcases had been transported to the haj dormitory in Makassar as officials and his family hoped that he would recover by the time of his scheduled departure on Tuesday.
“We and his family assumed that he was just exhausted, so we brought his suitcases to Makassar,” Tahir said in a statement.
In the 2024 haj season, the Religious Affairs Ministry recorded the deaths of at least 461 Indonesian pilgrims. Most of them died because of heat-related illness, as the temperature in Saudi Arabia rose as high as 51 degrees Celsius last year.
In the lead-up to this year’s haj season, authorities have been warning pilgrims to take care of their health by not forcing themselves to perform non-obligatory rituals and to rehydrate regularly.
The peak of this year’s haj, a ritual called wukuf that involves staying overnight at Arafah field, is scheduled for June 5, which is expected to be a hot summer day.
For future haj seasons, the government recently proposed that the Saudi government establish a special “village” in Mecca to accommodate pilgrims from Indonesia, which is among the world’s largest Muslim-majority countries.
President Prabowo Subianto recently claimed that Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman responded well to the proposal, which was extended during their recent meeting. The President added that Religious Affairs Minister Nasaruddin Umar was currently working on details of the plan and would soon travel to Saudi Arabia to finalise the deal.
Source: arynews
