AhlulBayt News Agency (ABNA): Imam Reza shrine is set to run some 40 Arba’een stations in Iraq in a bid to facilitate provision of services to Iranian and non-Iranian pilgrims converging in the city of Karbala forty days after Ashura.
Speaking in an event to host donors of charity for Arba’een, head of Karamat Razavi Foundation Mohammad Hossein Ostad Agha pointed to some 15 Arba’een charity stations that would be set up across Iran-Iraq border. “The central charity convoy of Imam Reza shrine is set to be stationed on Mehran border and will cook and distribute over 600,000 meals, and some one million ice slabs overall”.
He added that some 14 additional charity stations were supposed to serve pilgrims on eastern, northern and western borders of the country in an attempt to provide charity meals and drinks to Iranian and non-Iranian pilgrims such as those from Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The CEO of the foundation continued that over 40 charity stations from the northeastern Iranian city of Mashhad would be stationed in the Iraqi cities of Karbala, Samara, and Kadhimiya in addition to the ones on Iranian borders as stressed by the custodian of Imam Reza shrine.
Citing the intense heat and the runaway inflation of commodities in Iraq, Ostad Agha said over one million bottles of water and some 50,000 slabs of ice had been donated to serve the Arba’een pilgrims in the country.
He added that most of the stations in the city of Samara would be Iranian.
The official further said that 50 servants of Imam Reza shrine would also go to Iraq to express gratitude to the Iraqi charity stations serving pilgrims for the Arba’een multi-million march.
The Arba’een congregation will fall on September 17 this year.
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