Suspected schoolgirl poisoning attacks rattle a shaken Iran
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Over the past three months, hundreds of young girls attending various schools in Iran have become overpowered by what are believed to be noxious fumes in their classrooms, with some ending up weakened on hospital beds.
Officials in Iran’s theocracy initially dismissed the incidents, but now describe them as intentional attacks involving some 30 schools identified in local media reports, with some speculating they could be trying to close schools for girls in this country of over 80 million people.
The reported attacks come at a sensitive time for Iran, which already has faced months of protests after the September death of Mahsa Amini following her arrest by the country’s morality police.
The authorities have not named suspects, but the attacks have raised fears that other girls could be poisoned, apparently just for seeking an education — something that’s never been challenged in more than 40 years since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Iran itself also has been calling on the Taliban in neighboring Afghanistan to have girls and women return to school.
The first cases emerged in late November in Qom, some 80 miles southwest of Iran’s capital, Tehran. There, students at the Noor Yazdanshahr Conservatory fell ill in November. Then again in December.
Other cases followed, with children complaining about headaches, heart palpitations, feeling lethargic or otherwise unable to move. Some described smelling tangerines, chlorine or cleaning agents.
At first, authorities didn’t link the cases. It’s winter in Iran, where temperatures often drop below freezing at night. Many schools are heated by natural gas, leading to speculation it could be carbon monoxide poisoning affecting the girls. The country’s education minister initially dismissed the reports as “rumors.”
But the schools first affected taught only young women, fueling suspicion it wasn’t accidental. At least one case followed in Tehran, with others in Qom and Boroujerd. At least one boys’ school has also been targeted.
Slowly, officials began taking the claims seriously. Iran’s prosecutor-general ordered an investigation, saying “there are possibilities of deliberate criminal acts.” Iran’s Intelligence Ministry also reportedly investigated.
On Sunday, Iran’s staterun IRNA news agency filed multiple stories with officials acknowledging the scope of the crisis.
“After several poisonings of students in Qom schools, it was found that some people wanted all schools, especially girls’ schools, to be closed,” IRNA quoted Younes Panahi, a deputy health minister, as saying.
A Health Ministry spokesman, Pedram Pakaieen, said the poisoning did not come from a virus or a microbe. Neither elaborated further.
Ali Reza Monadi, a national parliament member on its education committee, described the poisonings as “intentional.”