A crisis team entrusted with handling the situation stated on Saturday that Egypt had revoked the operational licenses of sixteen tourism companies and reported them to the public prosecutor, accusing them of being accountable for the deaths of Egyptian pilgrims in Mecca.

At least 530 Egyptians are said to have died during this year’s haj pilgrimage to Mecca, according to medical and security sources. A statement from the unit, led by Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly and established on Thursday, stated that 31 deaths were proven to be related to chronic sickness.

The statement added without naming the travel agencies that helped the deceased get around did not offer them any services at all, including medical assistance.

The agencies are held accountable for bringing pilgrims to Saudi Arabia on visas intended for personal visits rather than those necessary for haj, which grants entry to Mecca, the site of the haj.

Personal visa holders are not eligible for the medical treatments provided by Saudi authorities to ease the challenges of the pilgrimage. The statement further stated that to escape being arrested or deported, the pilgrims who perished had to go over the desert into Mecca.

Additionally, according to Egyptian authorities, those tour companies failed to provide the pilgrims with “appropriate accommodation,” which contributed to their “exhaustion due to the high temperatures.”

Authorities in Egypt have also recorded 31 deaths among Egyptian pilgrims who have registered, with “chronic diseases” listed as the reason for death. The statement stated that the majority of the deceased were not registered.

Egypt’s Northern Africa neighbour, Tunisia fired Minister of Religious Affairs, Brahim Chaibi after reports that forty-nine pilgrims died the the same disaster.

The Hajj, which takes place in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, is the holiest pilgrimage in Islam. Terrorist attacks and stampedes are only two of the many deadly events that have occurred there recently.

Due to the Saudi kingdom’s mandated dramatic reduction in participation, only a few thousand people could take part in 2020—a far cry from the 2.5 million believers who did so in 2019.

Over 1.8 million pilgrims completed the hajj last year, according to government statistics, following the lifting of restrictions during the plague. Recently, hundreds of individuals from many nations have perished in the harsh conditions of the Saudi city during the Haj, when temperatures have occasionally risen above 51 degrees Celsius (124 Fahrenheit).

A recently sworn-in member of the South African parliament was suspended by the opposition party, the Democratic Alliance (DA), on Thursday after an old video of him advocating for the murder of Black people reappeared on social media.

A portion of a video with a young, white man named Renaldo Gouws making anti-Black comments was posted on social media on Wednesday. Gouws, 41, a former provincial council member for the Eastern Cape, was not available for comment.

He claimed in the video that he did not mean any of his offensive words about race and that he was providing background on Julius Malema, the then-youth leader of the African National Congress, singing a song from the apartheid era that advocated for the murder of white farmers.

A South African court found Malema guilty of uttering hate speech in 2011 for performing the song. Malema is currently the leader of the far-left Economic Freedom Fighters party.

One of the most unequal nations in the world, South Africa, where racial tensions have persisted three decades after the end of white minority rule, was rocked by the Gouws video.

According to the Democratic Alliance (DA), the second-largest party in the recently formed unity government in South Africa, it has shown beyond a reasonable doubt that the video in which Gouws used “execrable language” is real and authentic.

Gouws has been immediately suspended from all party activities, according to Helen Zille, chairperson of the federal council of the party.

“His case has been referred to the Federal Legal Commission and if he wants to state his defence, he will be able to do so there. But till then he is suspended from all party activities and we await the outcome of his disciplinary hearing,” she said.

The Human Rights Commission of South Africa announced that Gouws would be sued for allegedly using hate speech.

The lawmaker apologized for “the actions of my younger and immature self” in a statement he posted on X on Monday in response to the video, rejecting any accusations of racism.