President missing after helicopter crash

Still dressed in the black turban of senior religious dignitaries, Ebrahim Raïssi inaugurated, on the morning of Sunday, May 19, a roadblock on the border with Azerbaijan. On his return, his helicopter made a hard landing, according to the authorities, near Sungun (Iran), in the northwest of the country. The weather was terrible, and visibility was only a few meters. 40 rescue teams are deployed to try to find the device.

At the start of the evening, there was no certainty about the president’s fate. “We deployed three teams with drones, but given the fog and the lack of visibility, it didn’t work. There are also teams with dogs”, details Hamid Monajem, the head of the Red Crescent for the province of East Azerbaijan. Ebrahim Raïssi was elected in 2021. Religious, close to Ayatollah Khamenei, he was supported by the ultraconservative regime and expected to become the next guide of the Revolution.