Pakistan brought home Friday the bodies of 28 Shiite pilgrims killed in a bus crash in Iran this week while heading to Iraq for a pilgrimage. A Pakistani military aircraft also flew back 23 pilgrims injured in the accident, officials said.
Earlier in the day in Iran, officials handed over the bodies of the crash victims to Pakistani diplomats. Prayer services were held in both Iran and later in Pakistan.
Funeral were to take place in the victims' home districts early Saturday. The pilgrims were from Pakistan's southern Sindh province, according to Nasir Shah, a provincial government spokesman.
The plane, requested by Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif for the repatriation, landed at the airport in Jacobabad, about 1,000 kilometres southwest from the capital of Islamabad. The coffins, covered in Pakistan's national flag, were handed over to the victims' relatives for burial.
State-run PTV broadcast the ceremony at the Jacobabad airport, where relatives of the victims cried and
