Iran begins funeral ceremony for late President Raisi

Funeral ceremonies has begun in Iran for president Ebrahim Raisi, foreign minister Hossein Amirabdollahian and other victims of Sundays helicopter crash.

State media reported that thousands of government supporters flocked to the start of the ceremony in the north-western city of Tabriz on Tuesday to bid farewell.

According to the Tasnim news agency, further mourning ceremonies were planned in the religious stronghold and pilgrimage city of Qom as well as in the capital Tehran, .

Raisi is to be buried on Thursday in the Shiite centre of his home town of Mashhad, at the shrine of Imam Reza, the eighth imam of Shia Islam.

Raisi and Amirabdollahian were killed in a helicopter crash with seven other occupants, they went down in dense fog in the mountains while travelling back from a meeting with the Ilham Aliyev, the president of Azerbaijan.