Iranian President Hassan Rouhani will cut short his visit to New York and return home to attend the funeral of the Iranian victims of the recent crush in Saudi Arabia

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani will cut short his visit to New York and return home to attend the funeral of the Iranian victims of the recent crush in Saudi Arabia.

The president, who is in New York to take part in the 70th Session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), is to leave for the Iranian capital, Tehran, on Monday, said Parviz Esmaili, the president’s deputy chief of staff.

President Rouhani will deliver a speech at the UNGA before returning home.

Saudi Arabia’s Health Ministry has put the death toll from the incident at nearly 770.
However, the fatality figure released by Iran’s Hajj and Pilgrimage Organization stands at around 2,000. According to the latest announcement by the organization, the death toll of the Iranian pilgrims also stands at 169. Some 46 Iranians have also been hospitalized, while 298 others are still missing.

The first batch of the bodies of the Iranian pilgrims who lost their lives in the Mina crush is to be transferred to Iran on Tuesday, said Esmaili.

“Therefore, the [Iranian] president, having canceled a number of his programs and planned meetings at the United Nations, will leave New York Monday afternoon [local time],” said the president’s deputy chief of staff.

Since the moment he arrived in New York, President Rouhani has been following up on the fate of the Iranian victims of the Mina tragedy and ordered several Iranian government institutions to set up a joint task force to bring back the bodies of the deceased and offer medical treatment to the wounded, said Esmaili.

Meanwhile, President Rouhani held separate meetings with a number of world leaders in New York on Sunday.