Iran's Raisi laid to rest in Mashhad
Iran's president Ebrahim Raisi was interred after he died in a helicopter crash, concluding days of countrywide mourning and funeral processions attended by massive crowds.
Men and women, who were mainly clad in black chadors and clutching white flowers, crowded the main boulevard of Mashhad. / Photo: AFP
Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi has been laid to rest, concluding days of funeral rites attended by throngs of mourners after his death in a helicopter crash, state media reported.
Hundreds of thousands marched in his hometown town Mashhad on Thursday to bid farewell to Raisi ahead of his burial following processions in the cities of Tabriz, Qom, Tehran and Birjand.
The 63-year-old died on Sunday alongside his foreign minister and six others after their helicopter went down in the country's mountainous northwest while returning from a dam inauguration on the border with Azerbaijan.
Once the five days of public mourning, announced on Monday, have passed, the authorities including acting President Mohammad Mokhber will focus on organising an election for a new president set for June 28.
Men and women, who were mainly clad in black chadors and clutching white flowers, crowded the main boulevard of Mashhad, the country's second city in the northeast where Raisi was born.
National procession
Posters of Raisi and black flags were erected along the streets of Mashhad, particularly around Raisi's final resting place — the Imam Reza shrine, a key mausoleum visited by millions every year.
Earlier thousands of people holding images of Raisi and waving flags lined the streets of Birjand, capital of the eastern province of South Khorasan, for the procession of Raisi's coffin.
Raisi was South Khorasan's representative in the Assembly of Experts, a clerical body in charge of selecting or dismissing Iran's supreme leader.
He had widely been expected to succeed supreme leader Ali Khamenei, who led prayers in Tehran on Wednesday for the late president before the coffins of the eight people killed in the helicopter crash.
Among them was foreign minister Hossein Amirabdollahian, who was buried Thursday in the shrine of Shah Abdol-Azim in the town of Shahre Ray south of the capital.
Iranian officials and foreign dignitaries paid their respects to the late top diplomat at a ceremony in Tehran ahead of the burial.
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