A member of a council advising Iran’s supreme
leader has died after falling sick from coronavirus. He has become the first
top official to succumb to the disease which is affecting members of the
Islamic Republic’s leadership, which has the highest death toll in the world
outside China. Expediency Council member Seyyed Mohammad Mirmohammadi died aged
71 at a hospital in Tehran, according to state radio. As well as acting as
advisers, the council also settles disputes between Supreme Leader Ayatollah
Ali Khamenei and parliament. Also among the country’s infected officials is
Iraj Harirchi, head of an Iranian government task force on the coronavirus who
tried to downplay the virus before falling ill. Other high profile patients
include Vice President for women and family affairs Masoumeh Ebtekar, better
known as ‘Sister Mary’.
The English-speaking
spokeswoman for the students who seized the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in 1979 and
sparked the 444-day hostage crisis. Iran has reported 978 confirmed cases of
the new coronavirus strain named Covid-19 and 54 associated deaths. Across the
Middle East, there are over 1,150 cases of the airborne bug, the majority of
which are linked back to Iran. Experts worry the disease’s mortality rate in
Iran (5.5%) is much higher than in other countries, suggesting the number of
infections may be much higher than current figures show. Health workers in the
country reported that 210 people had died from the illness as of Saturday, five
times more than government figures claimed.
In a bid to stem the
spread, Iran’s Foreign ministry held an online-only news conference today in
which spokesman Abbas Mousavi dismissed an offer of help by US Secretary of
State Mike Pompeo. Tensions between the two countries have been at their
highest since the 1979 Islamic Revolution after an American drone strike in
Baghdad killed top Iranian general Qasem Soleimani.
This provoked an Iranian
ballistic missile attack against US forces at a base in Iraq. At today’s
conference, Mousavi said: ‘We neither count on such help nor are we ready to
accept verbal help.’ He said Iran has always been ‘suspicious’ about America’s
intentions and accused the US government of trying to weaken the nation’s
spirits. Meanwhile, the British Embassy has begun evacuations over the virus. A
spokesperson for the UK’s Foreign Office said: ‘Essential staff needed to
continue critical work will remain. ‘In the event that the situation
deteriorates further, the ability of the British Embassy to provide assistance
to British nationals from within Iran may be limited.’ While Iran has closed
schools and universities to contain the spread of the virus, major Shiite Islam
shrines have remained open despite civilian authorities demanding they be
closed. The virus has taken hold of the holy cities of Mashhad and Qom, where
Shiites often show their faith by touching and kissing the shrines, which
authorities have been cleaning with disinfectant.
Credita: Metro Uk
Comments
Post a comment