CAIRO, June 18 (Xinhua) -- Egypt's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Tuesday that it is intensively coordinating with Saudi authorities to track down Egyptian citizens who have gone missing during the Hajj pilgrimage.
In a statement, the ministry said the Egyptian embassy in Riyadh sent a consular mission to Mecca and the Holy Sites to monitor developments in the current situation and continue to search for all missing Egyptian citizens in coordination with the Saudi authorities.
The mission is conducting field visits to hospitals and medical centers where Egyptian citizens are present to check their conditions and ensure that they receive the necessary medical care, it said.
The ministry also said that it is taking all necessary steps to repatriate the bodies of deceased citizens whose families have requested their return to Egypt.
The Egyptian Consulate in Jeddah has launched an emergency room that operates 24 hours a day, to receive calls from citizens who have lost contact with their families in Mecca, Medina, or the Holy Sites, according to the statement.
At least 323 Egyptian pilgrims have died during the Hajj pilgrimage in western Saudi Arabia, with most fatalities resulting from heat-related illnesses, according to two Arab diplomats coordinating their countries' responses who spoke to AFP on Tuesday.
This year's Hajj pilgrimage coincided with a sharp rise in temperatures in Mecca and the presence of a large number of pilgrims from various countries as Saudi Arabia announced on Saturday that the number of pilgrims in the country exceeded 1.8 million this year. ■