Hundreds of thousands of people gathered in Tehran on Wednesday to pay their respects at the funeral procession of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, who tragically lost their lives in a helicopter crash earlier this week.
Mourners dressed in black filled the streets of the Iranian capital, carrying flags and displaying photographs of the deceased leaders and other officials who perished in the crash on Sunday.
The bodies of the victims were transported to Qom, a significant Shiite city where many of Iran's religious leaders are trained, before being brought back to Tehran's Grand Mosallah for public viewing on Tuesday evening. A truck equipped with loudspeakers playing Quranic verses led the procession through the city.
Expressing shock and sadness, mourners waved flags bearing messages honoring Raisi as a 'martyr of God,' reflecting the deep sense of loss felt by the Iranian people.