Bus carrying Pakistani pilgrims to Iraq overturns in Iran, killing 28

TEHRAN, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) — At least 28 people were killed and 23 others injured as a bus carrying Pakistani pilgrims to Iraq overturned in the central Iranian province of Yazd Tuesday night, Iran’s official news agency IRNA reported.
The incident occurred in Dehshir village, Taft County, at around 9:50 p.m. local time (18:20 GMT) Tuesday night as the bus was en route to the Iran-Iraq border carrying Pakistani passengers who sought to attend the Arbaeen ceremonies, IRNA quoted Mohammad-Ali Malekzadeh, the director general of the provincial crisis management department, as saying on Wednesday.
Malekzadeh added out of those injured, 14 were in critical condition and under treatment in the province’s medical centers.
He said the provincial authorities were ensuring the necessary coordination with the Iranian Foreign Ministry to transfer those killed and wounded in the incident to Pakistan on board a plane.
Commenting on the cause, Iran’s Traffic Police Chief Seyyed Teymour Hosseini said initial investigations showed that a technical defect in the bus’s braking system had led to the incident’s occurrence.
He said that the traffic police’s experts were on the scene conducting further investigations.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry Spokesman Nasser Kanaani on Wednesday expressed condolences over the deaths of Pakistani pilgrims, saying the incident “caused us deep sadness” and assuring that Iran’s relevant organizations and authorities were seriously continuing rescue, service and treatment operations.
Speaking to IRNA on Wednesday, Mohammad-Ali Malekzadeh, director general of Yazd province’s crisis management department, said provincial authorities were ensuring the necessary coordination with the Iranian Foreign Ministry to transfer those killed and wounded in the incident to Pakistan.
Falling this year on Aug. 25, Arbaeen marks the 40th day after the martyrdom of Imam Hussein, the grandson of Prophet Muhammad, in the battle of Karbala in 680 A.D.
The annual Arbaeen pilgrimage, attended by millions of Shiite Muslims from different countries, involves an 80-km walk from Najaf to Karbala in central Iraq, where Imam Hussein’s shrine is located.
In similar incidents on Friday, two people were killed and 71 others injured, mostly Iranians, in two car accidents in Iraq, the Iraqi traffic police said.
In one accident, a bus carrying Iranian pilgrims collided with a fuel tanker in the city of Diwaniyah, some 160 km south of the Iraqi capital Baghdad, killing the Iraqi bus driver and an Iranian pilgrim while injuring another 60 Iranian pilgrims, Hussein Abdul Amir from the Iraqi traffic police told Xinhua.
Abdul Amir said that 11 Iranian pilgrims were wounded in another car accident when a bus overturned on a road in Diyala province in eastern Iraq while they were heading to Karbala to observe Arbaeen. ■