Mourners bid farewell to 165 schoolchildren killed in US-Israeli strike
Thousands of people attended a funeral procession on Tuesday for the victims of a missile strike that hit an elementary school in the southern city of Minab during the latest US-Israeli aggression on Iran.
Mourners carried small coffins and photographs of the young victims, who perished as a result of the atrocity against the Shajareh Tayyebeh School on Saturday, as cries and prayers echoed throughout the city.
The strike, denounced by Iranian officials as an act of “savagery,” left 165 people, mostly pupils, dead and nearly 100 others injured.
The entirely civilian building housed a boys’ school on the ground floor and a girls’ school on the first floor.
President Masoud Pezeshkian offered condolences over the “heartbreaking tragedy following the treacherous attack that has grieved the hearts of all Iranians and free people.”
He added that “this inhuman, brutal act is another dark page in the endless record of the aggressors’ crimes against this land, which will never be erased from the historical memory of our nation.”
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) also condemned a deadly strike, calling it a serious breach of international law.
UNESCO said in a statement that schools are protected spaces under humanitarian law, adding that “attacks against educational institutions endanger students and teachers and undermine the right to education.”
Nobel Peace Prize laureate and UN Messenger of Peace Malala Yousafzai wrote on social media platform X that she was “heartbroken and appalled” by the strike, saying “the killing of civilians, especially children, is unconscionable, and I condemn it unequivocally.”
She called for an end to the violence, writing that “all states and parties must uphold their obligations under international law to protect civilians and safeguard schools. Every child deserves to live and learn in peace.”