“Five Iranian pilgrims, including an elderly man and a woman, were rescued after an old building collapsed in Najaf city on Wednesday,” Iraqi civil defense spokesperson Nawas Sabah Shakir told Rudaw.
The pilgrims were staying in the building’s basement, which was used to host visitors coming to Iraq for the Shiite Muslim Arbaeen pilgrimage, which marks the end of a 40-day mourning period for the grandson of Prophet Mohammed, Imam Hussein, who died in a battle fought in Karbala in 680 AD.
Millions of religious tourists from Lebanon, Turkey, Kuwait, and especially Iraq’s Shiite-majority neighbor Iran journey to Iraq for a symbolic 80-kilometer walk from Najaf to Karbala - both Shiite holy cities. Najaf city is located in central Iraq about 140 kilometers south of Baghdad.
From August 6 to August 25, Iraq’s border ports authority said 3,445,627 foreign tourists had entered the country for the religious event.
Civil defense authorities also decided to ban the remains of the guesthouse from being used and ordered its demolition, according to Shakir.
The Arbaeen walk begins in Ras al-Bishah, near Iraq’s southern borders with Iran and Kuwait, near the Gulf. Pilgrims customarily dress in black, march through the streets, and often self-flagellate with chains and wood. The walk ends at the shrine of Imam Hussein in Karbala.
The mourning of the Imam’s death is one of the most important rituals in Shiite Islam.
