More than 50 people were killed in Iran in a stampede on the fourth and final day of the funeral proceedings for military commander Qassem Soleimani as the foreign ministers from the UK, Germany and France met in Brussels for emergency talks on the Iranian crisis.
The mourners were crushed to death as hundreds of thousands of Iranians filled the streets of Soleimani’s hometown of Kerman to see his coffin in the final moments before the burial. Local authorities said 56 people were killed in the incident and more than 200 people were injured before the burial was postponed.
Soleimani’s assassination in targeted American air strikes last week has provoked an outpouring of grief unseen in Iran since the death in 1989 of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, leader of the Iran revolution, and has pushed the Islamic Republic to the brink of an all out conflict with the US.