Iran’s pilgrim numbers in Iraq reach 2.65 million: Police chief
Iranian police chief says some 2.65 million people traveled from Iran to neighboring Iraq in the four weeks to September 11 to perform duties related to the pilgrimage of Arbaeen, a ritual that marks the 40-day mourning period for Imam Hossein, the grandson of Prophet Mohammaed (PBUH).
General Hossein Ashtari, whose forces control Iranian borders, said on Saturday that some 750,000 people had returned to Iran from the pilgrimage in Iraq over the past weeks.
Ashtari made the comments while he was visiting one of the border crossings to Iraq in the western Iranian province of Kermanshah. He did not elaborate on the number of pilgrims from other countries who had traveled to Iraq via Iran.
However, his comments came two days after authorities imposed restrictions at borders to Iraq as they announced the Arab country would no longer be able to cope with the influx of pilgrims at least for the time being.
Iranian and Iraqi authorities had estimated that more than five million people would travel to Iraq this year to commemorate Arbaeen in Imam Hossein’s holy shrine in the city of Karbala.
That comes as authorities say the number of Pakistani pilgrims traveling through Iran to attend the Arbaeen pilgrimage dropped significantly this year because of the massive floods that affected large parts of Pakistan earlier this month.
The Arbaeen falls on September 16-17 but pilgrims normally travel to Karbala in the weeks before and after the religious occasion.
The pilgrimage has turned into one of the largest gathering of its kind in the world forcing the governments of Iran and Iraq to invest in infrastructure projects needed to accommodate the pilgrims.
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