Thousands of people descended on Thursday (May 23) for the last farewell ceremony of late Iranian President Ibrahim Raisi. Mourning people took to the streets in various cities.
He will be buried in his hometown on Thursday, four days after he was killed in a helicopter crash. Raisi, 63, was killed in a helicopter crash last Sunday along with his foreign minister and six others.
The helicopter crashed in the northwestern part of the country on its way back after inaugurating a dam on the border with Azerbaijan.
Thousands of people marched in the eastern city of Birzand waving placards and flags on Thursday morning to bid farewell to the president, Reuters reported.

The staunchly conservative president will be laid to rest at Imam Raza Mazar-e-Sharif, the main Shiite cemetery in the northeastern city of Mashhad, where he was born.

Images released by Iranian media on Wednesday showed Mashhad officials preparing for the burial. Large images of Raisi, black flags and Shiite symbols have been placed on the streets of Iran’s second city, especially around the shrine of Imam Reza.

Huge crowds gathered in the capital Tehran on Wednesday for a funeral procession to pay their last respects to the president, dubbed a ‘martyr’ in the media. Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, knelt before the coffins of the eight people killed in the crash and led prayers for the late president.

Foreign Minister Hossein AmirAbdullahian, who was killed in the crash, will also be buried on Thursday at the Shah Abdul-Azeem mausoleum in the city of Shahr-Rey, south of the capital. Before his burial, Iranian officials and foreign dignitaries paid tribute to the late top diplomat in a ceremony in Tehran.

Tunisian President Kais Said and Qatar’s Emir Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani attended a memorial service for Raisi on Wednesday, state news agency The Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) reported. Representatives of 60 countries of the world participated in the event.

European Union member states were absent. However, representatives of some countries like Belarus and Serbia were present there.

Khamenei, the ultimate authority in Iran, declared five days of national mourning and appointed Vice President Mohammad Mokhbar as interim president until Raisi’s successor is elected on June 28.

Mohsen, 31, who attended Wednesday’s funeral in Tehran, said: ‘How can I find someone like him? I am really worried about it. As far as I know, we have no equal.’

Raisi was elected president in 2021, replacing moderate Hassan Rouhani. After his death, Russia and China and NATO sent their condolences and the UN Security Council observed a minute of silence. Condolences also came from Iran’s allies in the region, including the Syrian government, Hamas and Hezbollah.