Pope Francis sent a telegram to Ayatollah Sayyed Ali Hosseini Khamenei, Iran’s most important spiritual guide, with his condolences for the death of the president of the Muslim country, Ebrahim Raisi, in an accident aboard a helicopter that occurred on Sunday, May 19. .
In the text released by the Vatican this Monday, the Holy Father also expressed his condolences for the death of “the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, and all those who perished in the accident” yesterday.
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“By entrusting the souls of the deceased to the mercy of the Almighty and with my prayers for those who mourn their departure, especially their families, I assure my spiritual closeness to the nation in these difficult times,” Pope Francis concluded.
In addition to the president and the minister, seven other people died in the accident near the Iranian city of Varzaqan, according to reports. Cnn in Spanish.
Who was Ebrahim Raisi, president of Iran?
Ebrahim Raisi was president of Iran between August 2021 and this month of May 2024. In 2017 he had also tried to become president, but without success.
Raisi was born on December 14, 1960. He was 63 years old.
He worked as attorney general between 2014 and 2016; and was vice president of the Supreme Court between 2004 and 2016; and president of the high court between 2016 and 2019.
The president’s death occurs at a time of tension in the Middle East, within the framework of the war between Israel and Gaza.
A few weeks ago, Iran launched a drone and missile attack against Israel, successfully repelled, in response to an attack on its diplomatic residence in Syria.
According to CNN en Español, Iran’s first vice president, Mohammad Mokhber, now leads the executive branch and an interim foreign minister has been named.
Walter Sánchez Silva
I have been a husband since 2008. My wife and I have three children here and one who went to heaven in 2023, before he was born. Since I joined ACI Prensa in 2005, I have had the opportunity to cover various events of the Catholic Church. Among them, the World Youth Days in Cologne, Madrid and Rio de Janeiro and the apostolic trips of Pope Benedict XVI to Mexico and of Pope Francis to South Korea. I have been sent to the Vatican to cover the Family synods, in 2015; of the Amazon, in 2019 and that of Synodality, in 2023. I closely follow the situation of the Catholic Church in Nicaragua, which suffers persecution from the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega, as well as current ecclesiastical events in the region.