Another suspected gas attack against young schoolgirls in Iran

Local media and activists report that at least 26 schools in five cities across Iran have been affected by gas poisoning. BBC.

Since November, more than a thousand students have been infected with suspected poisoning and have developed symptoms such as breathing problems, nausea, dizziness and fatigue. Now there has been a new attack that has taken many young people to the hospital.

In a video released by BBC Persian, several girls are seen lying on beds in a hospital ward in Tehran receiving oxygen therapy. According to the information, they must have attended a school in the western part of the capital and been poisoned.

The students reportedly smelled an unpleasant odor

A parent told the BBC that girls at their daughter’s school in the Tehran suburb of Pardis were poisoned in the poison attack on Tuesday.

– My daughter and two of her friends say they heard something like an explosion and immediately after that a bad smell. Something like burning plastic filled the air, says the parent, who the BBC does not want to identify for security reasons.

They were asked to leave the classroom and go out into the school yard. Several students started to collapse outside in the courtyard. There are children with asthma and heart problems in my daughter’s class.

In Iran, suspicions are now growing that the poisonings are an attempt to close girls’ schools.

– It is clear that some people want to close all schools, especially girls’ schools, said Iranian Deputy Health Minister Younes Panahi on Sunday. BBC.

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi assigned Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi to find out the “reason” behind the poisoning incidents. Neither the president nor the interior minister has commented on whether they believe the attacks were deliberate.

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