IRAN DECLARES 5 DAYS MOURNING FOR PRESIDENT EBRAHIM RAISI

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Following the confirmation of President Ebrahim Raisi’s death in a helicopter crash, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, announced five days of mourning for the Iranian president on Monday.

“I announce five days of public mourning and offer my condolences to the dear people of Iran,” said Khamenei in an official statement a day after the deaths of Raisi and other officials in the crash in East Azerbaijan province.

President Raisi died on Monday after his helicopter crashed in a mountainous region of the country.

Raisi was travelling with Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, who also died in the accident.

Rescue teams had been scouring the area since Sunday afternoon after a helicopter carrying Raisi, the foreign minister and other officials went missing.

Early Monday, relief workers located the missing helicopter, with state TV saying the president had died.

“The servant of Iranian nation, Ayatollah Ebrahim Raisi, has achieved the highest level of martyrdom whilst serving the people,” state television said Monday, with Mehr news agency also saying he was dead.

State television broadcast photos of Raisi, with the voice of a man reciting the Koran playing in the background.

Iran’s vice president for executive affairs, Mohsen Mansouri, posted on X a Koranic verse used to express condolences.