Iran school poisoning: 20 more girls hospitalised in series of latest attacks

As many as 20 Iranian schoolgirls have been admitted to the hospital after the latest series of mysterious poisoning attacks that have made women sick for over four months now. The girls were rushed to the medical facilities in the north-western city of Tabriz, an official was quoted as saying to Iran Wire. The first cases of the poisoning came to light following the nationwide protests against the Iranian cleric regime by the girls after the death of the 22-year-old Kurdish-Iranian woman, Mahsa Amini. 

School girls being treated in hospital for chest distress, shortness of breath

The poisoned girls are being treated for chest distress and shortness of breath, the head of the emergency service in West Azerbaijan province told the news agency ISNA. Condition for all the school girls was stable, he added. The incident occurred in Tabriz’s Baghmisheh town just a day after the Iranian schools had resumed classes after the Persian New Year break. Since November 2022, an estimated 5,000 school girls have complained about nausea, fainting, headaches, coughing, breathing difficulties and heart palpitations due to the poisoning incidences. Dozens have needed hospital intervention. In more than 200 schools, the parents have raised the issue and several including the schoolgoers have protested to ensure the girls' safety. 

UN has condemned the Islamic Republic for failing to protect the schoolgirls, and preventing attacks or conducting independent probes into the matter. These attacks first started just a few weeks after the September 2022 death of Amini and the Iranian security forces launched a nationwide crackdown. UN slammed the Iranian regime for failing to stop the "deliberate poisoning" of more than 1200 schoolgirls in Iran’s major cities. It questioned the state’s failure to protect them, prevent further attacks and lead a probe to punish the perpetrators. The first poisoning of schoolgirls in Iran was reported on November 30, 2022, in the city of Qom, as per the UN. Since then, targeted chemical attacks against girls’ schools have been reported in more than 91 schools across 20 provinces. 

"The poisonings have already resulted in hundreds of schoolgirls being hospitalised. Many parents have removed their daughters from school for fear of these attacks,” UN experts worried. 

“We are deeply concerned about the physical and mental well-being of these schoolgirls; their parents and the ability of the girls to enjoy their fundamental right to education. While arrests have just been announced, we remain gravely disturbed by the fact that for several months, State authorities not only failed to swiftly investigate the attacks, but repeatedly denied them until recently,” they added.