CAIRO, Oct 11 (Aswat Masriya) - The number of Egyptians who died in a stampede while performing Haj last month climbed to 177 rising from 165 reported on Friday while the number of those missing dropped to 64, the Egyptian Foreign Ministry said on Sunday.

Ten Egyptians remain injured, the ministry said in a statement. 

A stampede in the Saudi tent city of Mina on Sept 24 left 769 dead when pilgrims either suffocated or were trampled while preforming Haj, one of the five pillars of Islam.  

Since the incident, pictures of dozens of Egyptians who went to Saudi for pilgrimage are being circulated on social media by family members who have lost contact with them. Many of them are senior citizens. 

Last week, three Egyptian hospitals started collecting the DNA samples of the relatives of missing people to compare them with yet unidentified bodies in Saudi hospitals. 

The Egyptian consulate in Jeddah has uploaded photos of unidentified persons killed and injured during the stampede to its official Facebook page and asked relatives of missing persons to identify them.

Consul General Adel al-Alfi was cited in the Foreign Ministry statement as saying that the consul-general in Jeddah will continue to track down the number of dead, injured and missing people, until the end of the "crisis".