Funerals take place for victims after a walkway collapsed when people who ran towards a shrine during a procession panicked.
At least 31 pilgrims have died after a walkway collapsed, causing a stampede at a Shia Muslim religious ritual in the Iraqi city of Karbala, officials have said.
At least another 100 were injured, 10 of them critically, on what is one of the sacred religious holy days for Shias, an Iraqi health ministry spokesman said. Tragedy struck around noon on Tuesday near the end of the Ashura procession, according to city officials, who did not provide details on how the victims died. Funerals later took place for the victims.The so-called Tweireej run, where tens of thousands of worshippers run towards the shrine of holy figure, Imam Hussein, turned into a stampede at the entrance to the ornate building after the walkway collapsed, an official at the shrine said.
The run symbolises when maternal cousins of Imam Hussein's half-brother al-Abbas ran from the nearby village of Tweireej to rescue him only to find out that he was killed.Hundreds of thousands of Shia Muslims travel to Karbala from around the world each year to mark the death of the Prophet Mohammed's grandson, in battle in 680.
He died at the city fighting for the leadership of the Islamic community, one of the key moments in the schism between Shia and Sunni Muslims.
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