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Millions bid farewell to Raisi
At least three million mourners marched in Raisi’s home town Mashhad Thursday to bid farewell to the president, the mega city’s mayor said, following processions in the cities of Tabriz, Qom, Tehran and Birjand.
Later at dusk, the president’s body was lowered into a tomb at the Imam Reza (PBUH) Shrine, where Shia’s eighth Imam is buried.
The 63-year-old president lost his life on Sunday alongside his foreign minister and six others after their helicopter went down in the country’s mountainous northwest while heading to inaugurate an upgraded oil refinery unit in Tabriz. The governor of East Azarbaijan Province Malek Rahmati and Friday Prayers leader of Tabriz city Mohammad Ali Al-e Hashem, as well as crew members and a bodyguard also lost their lives in the crash.
Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, expressing his deep sorrow over the “martyrdom-like passing”, announced five days of national mourning on Monday.
The cortege carrying the coffins of the “martyrs” attracted huge numbers of mourners who thronged main thoroughfares and adjoining streets for several kilometers, wherever it went.
In Tehran, Ayatollah Khamenei and representatives of the regional resistance groups prayed over the coffins Wednesday, before millions of people followed a procession down Tehran’s main boulevard.
The Leader also met the president’s family in his residence, viewing the former president “as a symbol of the Islamic Revolution slogans”. He described the people’s admiration for Raisi as a message to the world in support of the Islamic Republic.
The Iranian foreign minister was buried south of Tehran. Tens of thousands of mourners gathered in the town of Shahr-Rey in Tehran Province on Thursday for a funeral ceremony, which ended in Amir-Abdollahian’s burial in the shrine of Shah Abdolazim.
Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh attended the prayers and recounted President Raisi telling him that the Oct. 7 operation by Palestinian fighters against Israel was an “earthquake in the heart of the Zionist entity”.
Statesmen from West Asia and beyond from some 60 countries attended a later memorial service, including Iraq’s Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ al-Sudani, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani and Tunisian President Kais Saied.
Tajikistan’s President Imomali Rahmon, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan and Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed, and the UAE’s minister of foreign affairs, were other foreign representatives who traveled to Tehran, meeting Iranian leaders to express their condolences.
Also, the resistance officials including Deputy Secretary-General of the Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah Sheikh Naim Qassem, Deputy Secretary-General of the Islamic Jihad resistance movement, Mohammad al-Hindi, and the senior representative of Yemen’s National Salvation Government, Mohammed Abdul-Salam were in Tehran to pay tribute to the late president and his entourage.
Earlier tens of thousands of people lined the streets of Birjand, capital of the eastern province of South Khorasan, to bid farewell to the late president as his coffin move through the main street.
President of the UN General Assembly Dennis Francis paid tribute to Raisi and Amir-Abdollahian by visiting the Islamic Republic’s mission in New York on Thursday to sign a memorial book in honor of the deceased Iranian officials. Representatives of 50 countries in the United Nations have also signed the book opened in memory of
them.