At least three people have been killed and 48others wounded when a bus carrying Pakistani pilgrims crashed into a truck in southern Iran, state media reported Monday.
In recent days, Shiite Muslims have been heading to Iraq for a major ritual, with Pakistanis often travelling through Iran to attend the Arbaeen commemoration.
Iran’s official news agency IRNA said a bus collided with a truck late Sunday on the main road between Neyriz city in Fars province and Sirjan in Kerman province, leaving “48 wounded and three dead”.
It did not specify how many people where on board the bus.
According to Colonel Abdol Hashem Dehghani, a Fars traffic police official cited by IRNA, the driver’s “inability to control the vehicle” and “a technical failure” in the brakes were the primary causes of the collision.
This was the second car catastrophe involving Pakistani pilgrims in less than a week, following a collision in central Iran that claimed the lives of 28 people as they traveled to Iraq for Arbaeen, one of the most important occasions on the Shiite calendar.
Iran has a dismal record for road safety, with almost 20,000 fatalities in collisions in the year ending in March 2024, according to data from the Legal Medicine Organization of the Iranian judiciary that were reported by regional media.
Arbaeen, the 40th day of mourning for Imam Hussein, the grandson of the Prophet Mohammed, attracted 22 million pilgrims in total last year, according to government statistics.
According to IRNA, some 25,000 pilgrims from Pakistan had crossed into Iran by August 19th in order to travel to the Iraqi holy city of Karbala, which is home to the tombs of Hussein and his brother Abbas.
