Ebrahim Raisi is dead. Iranian state TV reported this officially, defining the president as a "martyr of the service" . Tomorrow, Tuesday 21 May, the state funeral will be held.
When the rescuers, after hours of searches hampered by bad weather and the inaccessible area, found the wreckage of the helicopter, on the road to the Iranian village of Khoilar-Kalam, it was all burned. All passengers died, including the Iranian Foreign Minister .
Search teams found parts of the aircraft's wing and blade on a hill and moved towards the scene. “ There is no sign of life in the helicopter and the cabin is burned ,” Iranian media said, showing images of Red Crescent rescuers in action with a monitoring device.
The accident occurred in a remote mountainous area of Azerbaijan , bad weather forced the aircraft to make a very abrupt emergency landing and it essentially crashed to the ground.
The presidential convoy of three helicopters left Azerbaijan after a visit by Raisi to his counterpart Ham Aliyev, with whom he inaugurated a dam . The first news, arriving from the Iranian media, reported an "accident", but without clarifying whether the helicopter involved was Raisi's. What followed was a chaotic succession of updates, often contradictory. «Raisi is not injured, he left in a car», is the first version of the Iranian Mehr agency, which then deleted the news. The first official report came from the Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi, who confirmed the crash ("the hard landing") of the helicopter with Raisi, the Foreign Minister, the governor of the province and the main imam of the region, "a due to bad weather conditions."
State TV alternated images of Iranians praying with footage of a Red Crescent team walking up a slope with poor visibility. The EU, at Tehran's request, activated the Copernicus satellite system. Other countries, such as Saudi Arabia, Russia and Türkiye, have offered assistance. The White House also followed the evolution of the crisis, while from Rome Giorgia Meloni called for a meeting with the relevant ministers and intelligence. From Tehran, the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei expressed the hope that "God will bring the honorable president and his companions back into the arms of the nation", and launched an appeal to the whole country to "pray for the health of this group of employees public" . Prayers and vain hopes, the aircraft was located in the night, no trace of life on board.
The Iranian government has assured that work will continue "without interruption". "The hard-working and tireless president of the Iranian people sacrificed his life for the nation," we read in a statement. "We assure the loyal nation that, with the help of God and the support of the people, there will not be the slightest interruption in the administration of the country ." The leadership of the country will be taken by the deputy, elections will take place within 50 days.
An emergency meeting of the executive has already been held, chaired by Mohammad Mokhber , the first vice-president.
Elected president of the Islamic Republic in 2021, the ultra-conservative 63-year-old Raisi took the reins of a country in the grip of a profound social crisis and an economy severely tested by US sanctions against Tehran for its disputed nuclear program. Dauphin of the Supreme Leader and in pole position for the succession, he proved to be an intransigent enemy of Israel and the United States, reaching the highest level of conflict with the Jewish State, culminating with the first Iranian attack conducted in enemy territory, against the backdrop of war in Gaza . With his death, despite Khamenei's reassurances on the stability of the system, a phase of turbulence would begin in the country which could affect the already very fragile balance of the Middle East.
(Unioneonline/L)