Bodies of 28 pilgrims killed in Iran arrive in Pakistan

JACOBABAD:Bodies of 28 pilgrims killed when their bus crashed in the center Iran while they were going to an important place Shiite Muslim Ritual were returned to Pakistan.
The bus was carrying 51 Pakistani pilgrims to Iraq for the Commemoration of Arbaeenone of the biggest events in the Shiite calendar, when it overturned and burst into flames outside a checkpoint in Yazd Province On Tuesday evening, Iranian state television reported.
The bodies were flown from Yazd to an airfield in southern Pakistan, where most of the deceased had come from and where they had started their journey.
The coffins, each draped in a Pakistani flag, arrived in the city of Jacobabad shortly before midnight on Friday, an AFP journalist noted.
A fleet of ambulances then they took the bodies back to their hometowns.
Other pilgrims injured in the accident were taken to hospitals in Karachi.
Among the victims were 11 women and 17 men, the head of crisis management in Yazd province, Ali Malek-zadeh, told Iranian television.
Iranian traffic police chief Teymour Hosseini cited brake failure and the steep road as the reasons for the accident.
Arbaeen marks the 40th day of mourning for Imam Hussein, the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad.
Some 22 million pilgrims took part in last year’s commemoration in the Iraqi shrine city of Karbala, where Hussein and his brother Abbas are buried, according to official figures.