By Ajani Okanlawon
The death toll from Thursday’s stampede in Mina, a city close to Mecca in Saudi Arabia rose to 769 on Saturday.
Health Minister Khaled al-Falih announced the new figure, an increase from the previous toll of 717.
The number hurt rose to 934 from 863 recorded just after the deadliest incident in a quarter-century to strike the annual Muslim pilgrimage.
Deputy Secretary General of the Nigeria Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs, Professor Tijjani Abubakar El-Miskin, as well as veteran journalist and civil society activist, Hajiya Bilkisu Yusuf, were the first Nigerian casualties reported after the tragedy.
Reports, however, came in Saturday that Justice Abubakar Abdulkadir Jega of the Court of Appeal and brother to immediate past chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, Professor Attahiru Jega, was among the dead.
Also on Saturday, the Executive Secretary of Gombe State Muslim Pilgrims Welfare Board, Alhaji Usman Gurama, told newsmen in Mina, Saudi Arabia five pilgrims from the state have been missing since Thursday.
Gurama said members of the medical team had been checking hospitals and mortuaries with a view to locating them or their remains.
He however said it had not been confirmed whether they were among those who died in the stampede.
The number of casualties from Sokoto State may have risen to seven, according to sources close to the delegation in Saudi Arabia.
Other states are counting their losses too.
Dozens of Saudi special emergency force personnel were Saturday seen on one level of Jamarat Bridge, a five-storey structure in Mina, where pilgrims ritually stone the devil, and on which hundreds of thousands were converging when Thursday’s stampede occurred nearby.
