Tens of thousands of Shia Muslims marched through the streets of the sacred Iraqi city of Kerbala and the capital Baghdad today to pay their last respects to the 185 people killed in a wave of devastating bombings yesterday.
Chanting "God is Greatest", crowds in Kerbala carried around a dozen coffins through the streets, some laden with flowers, others draped in rugs with verses from the Koran, as black-clad musicians clashed cymbals, banged drums and blew horns.
At least five bombs tore through Kerbala yesterday morning, just as a major Shia religious festival was concluding, killing at least 115 people and wounding more than 200, according to Health Ministry figures. The US military said at least one of the blasts was a suicide bombing. Coordinated strikes against Shia worshippers in Baghdad killed 70, the Health Ministry said.
The funeral procession, led by Kerbala's senior clerics, made its way through the heart of the city towards the mosque of Imam Hussein, one of Shia Islam's holiest shrines, where the bodies were taken inside and the mass of mourners said prayers.
Crowds gathered to watch the procession along the streets and from balconies, shouting "Hussein! Hussein!", invoking the name of a revered Shia martyr, the grandson of the Prophet Mohammed, killed more than 13 centuries ago.
In a sermon at the mosque, a leading Kerbala cleric urged the crowds not to seek vengeance for the death and destruction meted out in the blasts, which struck as some two million pilgrims gathered to mark their holiest day.
"Those who did this want a civil war in Iraq, but we will not be drawn into it," said Ayatollah Hadi al-Muddaresi.
"This act against us was an aggression against all Muslims."
After the sermon, the coffins were carried to the nearby shrine of Imam Abbas and from there to the edge of the city, from where they will be taken to the holy city of Najaf, south of Kerbala, where there is a revered Muslim burial ground.