Shiite pilgrims march via Baghdad surrounded by safety

BAGHDAD (AP) — Amid chilly temperatures and heavy safety, hundreds of black-clad pilgrims from throughout Iraq marched Thursday within the annual procession in marking the demise of a Shiite saint.

Pilgrims historically journey on foot to the shrine and burial website of Imam Moussa al-Kadhim, the seventh of 12 Shiite imams who died in a Baghdad jail within the eighth century. The procession results in the positioning within the northern Baghdad neighborhood of Kadimiyah. Contributors put on black, with some finishing up self-flagellation to publicly specific their mourning.

Tents had been pitched alongside the kilometers of highway that the pilgrims had been strolling Thursday, handing out meals and water freed from cost. 1000’s of Iraqi safety forces had been deployed throughout the town to make sure the security of the pilgrims, whereas some roads and bridges had been closed to automobiles to permit pedestrian site visitors solely.

Sadiq Jaffar, 27, of Baghdad, instructed The Related Press he was collaborating within the pilgrimage “as a result of you will need to my id, regardless of all the issues that the nation is going through akin to the rise within the worth of meals and the rampant corruption.”

This 12 months’s pilgrimage takes place simply forward of the 20-year anniversary subsequent month of the U.S. invasion of Iraq that led to the downfall of longtime dictator Saddam Hussein. Hussein had banned such pilgrimages from going down.

Throughout years of civil struggle that adopted, insurgents repeatedly focused Shiite pilgrims throughout their non secular ceremonies.

Iraq emerged from a yearlong political stalemate with the formation of a authorities in October, however hopes for stabilization of the political and financial state of affairs had been shortlived.

Measures taken by the USA in latest months to stamp out cash laundering and the channeling of {dollars} to Iran and Syria from Iraq have severely restricted Iraq’s entry to exhausting foreign money, resulting in devaluation of the foreign money and inflation of costs.