The remains of the 28 pilgrims who perished in a bus tragedy in central Iran on their way to a significant Shiite Muslim ceremony have been returned to Pakistan.
The bus flipped and caught fire in front of a checkpoint in Yazd province on Tuesday night, transporting 51 pilgrims from Pakistan to Iraq for the Arbaeen celebration, one of the most important occasions in the Shiite calendar, according to Iranian state TV.
From Yazd, the bodies were taken to an airstrip in southern Pakistan, the starting point of the voyage and the place where the majority of the victims were from.
The coffins, each draped with a Pakistani flag, arrived in the city of Jacobabad shortly before midnight on Friday, an AFP journalist witnessed.
The bodies were then transported to their hometowns by a fleet of ambulances.
The other pilgrims hurt in the collision were taken to Karachi hospitals.
According to Yazd province crisis management chief Ali Malek-zadeh, there were 17 men and 11 women among the dead.
The incident was caused by a brake failure and the steep slope, according to Teymour Hosseini, the head of Iran’s traffic police.
The 40th day of mourning for Imam Hussein, the Prophet Mohammed’s grandson, is observed on Arbaeen.
According to official numbers, the celebration in the Iraqi shrine city of Karbala, where Hussein and his brother Abbas are interred, drew almost 22 million pilgrims last year.
