Abdul Ahad Momand, the first Afghan to travel to space, was buried in Kabul on Monday after his body was returned from Germany, where he died last week following a battle with cancer.
Momand’s body arrived in Kabul from Munich on Monday morning. Taliban officials, members of his family, friends and other Afghans gathered at Kabul airport to receive it.
Funeral prayers were held later in the morning at the Eidgah Mosque, before Momand was buried at Tapa-e-Maranjan in Kabul.
Taliban officials attending the funeral described his death as a significant loss for Afghanistan.
Momand was born in 1959 in Andar district of Ghazni province. After studying in Kabul and receiving pilot training in the Soviet Union, he joined the Afghan Air Force.
In 1988, Momand traveled aboard a Soviet Soyuz spacecraft to the Mir space station, becoming the first Afghan and the fourth Muslim to travel to space.
His journey made him one of Afghanistan’s most widely recognized figures in science and aviation and secured his place in the history of human spaceflight.
Momand later settled in Stuttgart, Germany. He died last Sunday at a hospital in Germany after years of treatment for cancer. He was 67.
