Over two million Iranians have been traveling to Iraq in recent days to take part in rituals marking Arbaeen, the 40th day after the martyrdom anniversary of Imam Hussein (AS).
Ali Asghar Peyvandi, the head of the IRCS, said that booths and tents have been set up on the paths of pilgrims in three western provinces of Iran to collect aid for Myanmar Muslims.
He said the pilgrims have welcomed the plan, making donations to help the persecuted Muslim minority.
However, pointing to the depth of the crisis the Rohingya Muslims are facing, he said there is much more aid needed.
More than 600,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled violence in Myanmar’s Rakhine State, where there is an ongoing crackdown by the military on the minority group, and entered Bangladesh.
Rohingya Muslims have long faced severe discrimination in Myanmar and were the targets of violence in 2012 that killed hundreds and drove about 140,000 people from their homes to camps for the internally displaced.
In September, the UN top human rights official accused Myanmar of carrying out "a textbook example of ethnic cleansing” against Rohingya Muslims.
Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein, the UN high commissioner for human rights, said the military’s "brutal” security campaign was in clear violation of international law, and cited what he called refugees’ consistent accounts of widespread extrajudicial killings, rape and other atrocities.
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