On Sunday, pilgrims from around the world flocked to Mina's hair to throw anthrax on the first day of Eid al-Adha at the start of the most dangerous pilgrimage.
Saudi Arabia has deployed tens of thousands of security personnel and paramedics and uses modern technology, including drones to maintain order, according to Reuters.
Almost two and a half million pilgrims, most of them from outside Saudi Arabia, came to perform the five-day obligatory duty and are required to follow a strictly defined schedule to perform all the rituals amid Saudi procedures and arrangements aimed at preventing a stampede, a constant obsession during the Hajj seasons.
Saudi authorities have urged pilgrims to set aside politics during rituals, but violence in the Middle East, the wars in Yemen, Syria, Libya and other global hotspots remain in the minds of many.
The stampede in 2015 killed about 800 pilgrims, according to Saudi authorities, when two large groups of pilgrims arrived simultaneously and in opposite directions at a crossroads on their way to Jamarat Bridge.
The Saudi authorities said at the time that the incident may have been caused by pilgrims who did not abide by the rules governing gatherings, and ordered King Salman to conduct an investigation, but the results were never announced.
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