Several girls in Iran have been hospitalised by a wave of poisonous gas attacks targeting them at school, since November last year.
The latest attacks occurred earlier this week, when up to 830 students across 26 schools were sent to hospitals after experiencing a sudden onset of respiratory problems, nausea, dizziness and fatigue. They also reported smelling tangerine or rotten fish before becoming ill.
One official reportedly claimed at least 1,200 students in the Shia Muslim holy city of Qom and Borujerd were poisoned on Tuesday alone.
BBC Persian spoke to a parent whose daughter’s school was attacked by poison on Tuesday.
“My daughter and two of her friends say they heard something like an explosion and immediately afterwards an unpleasant smell – something like burned plastic filled the air,” the parent said.
“They were asked to leave the class and go into the yard. Many of the students started collapsing in the yard. There are kids with asthma and heart problems in my daughter’s class. Ambulances and the police arrived. Kids were given milk by the ambulance staff.”
The gas attacks have mainly targeted girls’ schools over the last three months and are believed to be a reaction against the continuing political tension ignited by the death of Mahsa Amini last September in police custody.
According to reports by BBC Persian, more than 1,000 students have been affected by the poisoning incidents since November, and videos have surfaced showing ambulances attending to students at schools and others being treated in hospitals across multiple cities.
One video, certified by the BBC and posted on Twitter, shows several distressed girls lying in hospital beds, and receiving oxygen through a mask.
Another video taken at Tehransar shows primary-aged girls sitting on the ground at the school gates, and a mother running inside the school being told by a man, “They’ve poisoned the students with gas.”
On the same day, a group of girls were seen standing outside the school shouting “Woman, life, freedom” and “Death to the child-killing government.”
“We arrived at the school, angry and worried,” one parent of a child at the school told BBC Persian. “Parents started shouting slogans against [Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali] Khamenei.”
“Nobody believes they will investigate these attacks,” they added. “I have no hope in the system. But I hope the world will hear our voice and stop supporting these child killers.”
Officials reported more than 30 students from that school were hospitalised, though many parents believe the actual figures to be much higher.
“From my conversations with parents and the school principal, half of the students were taken to hospitals,” another parent told BBC. “That is at least 200 students.”
“Some parents have also refused to take their children to hospital because they are afraid and don’t trust the officials.”
Why are girls being poisoned?
On Sunday, Deputy Health Minister Younes Panahi said the poisoning attacks may be a deliberate attempt to shut down schools for girls — a view shared by other Iranian government officials.
According to the Islamic Republic News Agency, Panahi said, “After the poisoning of several students in Qom schools, it was found that some people wanted all schools, especially girls’ schools, to be closed.”
“[It was] evident that some people wanted all schools, especially girls’ schools, to be closed down,” he said.
Preventing the education of girls in Iran would see the country follow the ideological trajectory of extremist groups such as the Taliban in Afghanistan and Boko Haram who forbid education for girls.
The Iranian government have yet to make any official statements regarding their position on whether the attacks were premeditated, although Health Minister Bahram Einollahi said this week, “Investigating where this mild poison comes from … and whether it is an intentional move are not within the scope of my ministry.”
State media reports have offered a range of potential explanations from varying government sources— from suggestions that the attacks were intentional, to blaming faulty heating systems in schools.
Earlier this week, Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi dismissed a report by a local news outlet that claimed a handful of arrests had been made.
He also accused “mercenary groups” and “enemies” of using the attacks to “cause worry among pupils and families.”
On Tuesday, the Fars News Agency reported the chairman of the parliamentary education committee, Alireza Monadi-Sefidan, saying that an investigation had revealed nitrogen contained in the toxic gas.
As the investigations continue, many students and parents across the country believe the attacks are a form of “punishment” for the anti-government protests which started in September last year.
What have the police said?
Iranian police chief Ahmad-Reza Radan warns the public against jumping to conclusions about the reason for the attacks.
“Our priority is to find the origin of this case, and until then we will not judge whether it was intentional or not,” he told local news.
“We have not yet arrested anyone in this case and we are identifying possible suspects.
Condemnation
Senior cleric Mohammad Javad Tabatabai-Borujerdi is unhappy about the wide range of contradictory statements provided about the attacks.
“Officials are giving contradictory statements … one says it is intentional, another says it is security-linked and another official blames it on schools’ heating systems,” he told the state media.
“Such statements increase people’s mistrust.”
Qom politician Ahmad Amiri Farahani called the attacks an “irrational act” and stressed that the citizens of the holy city “support girls’ education”.
Former reformist vice-president Massoumeh Ebtekar expressed his horror over the “repeat of the crime of poisoning girls” and pressed authorities to “put an end to misogynistic fanatics once and for all,”
Protests
The gas attacks have sparked a new surge of nationwide outrage.
Protesters in the southeastern province of Sistan-Baluchistan faced heavy security over the weekend, holding up banners emblazoned with the slogan “Death to the dictator” amidst an apparent internet blackout.
The Iranian government has purportedly arrested thousands of demonstrators, while some figures provided by Norway-based NGO Iran Human Rights, said that at least 131 people have been killed by security forces in Sistan-Baluchistan — one of Iran’s poorest region.