Ebrahim Raisi, Iran’s late president, is being buried in his hometown of Mashhad, four days after being killed in a helicopter crash.
The 63-year-old will be buried in the sacred mausoleum of Imam Reza, a revered figure in Shia Islam.
Large crowds gathered in one of the city’s main streets in preparation for the ceremony.
Seven other individuals were killed in the crash on Sunday, which occurred during severe weather in Iran’s mountainous northwest.
They include Raisi’s foreign minister, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, who was buried on Thursday at the Shah Abdolazim shrine in Rey, a southern suburb of the capital Tehran.
Leaders and other dignitaries from Iran’s neighbors and allies attended a memorial service in Tehran on Wednesday.
Mohammad Mokhber, 68, the former first vice president of Raisi, welcomed them and said that he would take over as acting president until the June 28 election.
Representatives of the loosely organized armed organizations known as the “Axis of Resistance,” which receives funding, training, and weapons from Iran, were also there.
They included Ismail Haniyeh, the political leader of Hamas, the Palestinian armed group backed by Iran; Naim Qassem, the deputy secretary-general of the Hezbollah movement in Lebanon; Mohammed Abdulsalam, the spokesman for the Houthis in Yemen; and Faleh al-Fayad, the leader of the paramilitary Popular Mobilization Forces in Iraq.
Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, also led prayers for those killed.
Senior Western officials were noticeably absent from Wednesday’s ceremony, reflecting their countries’ strained relations with Iran.
Tens of thousands of people have taken part in the funeral processions in recent days, which the government and state media have portrayed as demonstrations of national unity.
