Stealing around barbed wire barriers through fields and side streets, dozens of black-clad Shiite pilgrims in Baghdad defied curfews and coronavirus this week to visit the shrine of a revered imam.

Seeking to stem an outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, more than half of Iraq’s 18 provinces have declared curfews of several days.

Baghdad, the Arab world’s second most populous capital with 10 million in habitants, imposed a curfew from Tuesday evening for six days.