Today was supposed to be a day of celebration for Muslims.Eid al-Adha, or the feast of the sacrifice, is the culmination of the Hajj pilgrimage at Mecca.Instead, the images from Mecca are of dead bodies and injured people on stretchers.More than 700 people were killed in a stampede when crowds surged at an intersection in Mina just outside of Mecca.Officials in Saudi Arabia are vowing to investigate, but this isn't the first time such a stampede has happened in the same place.Joining us now is reporter Aya Batrawy from Mina. Thank you for joining us.Thank you.Can you just describe what moment in the Hajj Mina represents? What is it people are doing there during the Hajj?The rituals performed in Mina are supposed to be a symbolic stoning of the devil or casting away of evils after you go through the spiritual cleansing of Hajj.So people head towards this facility where there's three columns based on those columns which are supposed to be where the prophet Abraham once stood.And what triggered the stampede?When people were heading towards the area where they do the ritual stoning ― and people were coming back from that area,so the two crowds met at an intersection on one of the narrow roads between the tents.And when they tried to get past one another, that's when people started becoming suffocated, tripping over one another and then being crushed.This spot at Mina has been called one of the most dangerous spots on the Hajj pilgrimage.
