SOURCE :- SIASAT NEWS
Eleven-year-old Parestesh Zaeri was standing on the upper floor of her primary school when the explosions began.
The force of the strike ripped through the building, collapsing the floor beneath her and throwing her into the rubble below. She survived after weeks in the hospital with severe burns. Her nine-year-old brother, Ali Asghar, was killed.
Their story was among the devastating accounts that emerged from the southern Iranian town of Minab, where residents spoke with Sky News, three months after a missile strike destroyed a primary school and killed at least 156 people — most of them children and teachers.
Witness accounts
The report documented what survivors described as scenes of “unspeakable horror.”
Brothers Fazel Ali Najet and Resa, among the first people to rush to the school after the strike, said the aftermath was beyond anything they had imagined.
“There were hands, heads, and a child’s torso without limbs,” they told Sky News. “We were wondering if we were in a nightmare or awake.”
According to survivors and school staff, teachers realised early that morning that Iran was under attack and began urgently contacting parents to collect their children before further strikes could occur. For many families, however, the warnings came too late.
Prayer room collapse
School staff reportedly moved most of the girls into an upper-floor prayer room, believing it would offer greater protection. Instead, witnesses said, that section of the building took a direct hit and collapsed completely, trapping children and teachers beneath the debris.
The report states that the school had been marked as a primary school on publicly available maps for more than a decade.
9-year-old dies just before 10th birthday
At the local cemetery in Minab, a family gathered to mark what should have been a milestone for Muhammad Taha, who would have celebrated his 10th birthday that night.
Instead of a party, his mother, Hadija, and their relatives held a sombre vigil at his graveside, bringing a birthday cake and singing “May you live for a hundred years,” a traditional song that served as a painful reminder of his lost future.
Hadija shared the harrowing details of her son’s death, explaining that she had to search through multiple morgues before DNA testing finally identified him from a piece of a torso and an arm.
In a final, devastating act of motherhood, she recounted hugging the remains of Muhammad Taha and singing him a lullaby one last time before his burial.
“She hugged it and sang what remained of her son a lullaby before they buried him,” Sky News reported.
US involvement in attack
The investigation said evidence collected at the scene points to possible US involvement. Fragments identified as parts of US-made Tomahawk cruise missiles were reportedly recovered from the ruins of the school.
The report noted that the missiles involved were precision-guided weapons, raising questions about how a clearly identified civilian structure was struck directly.
Questions over strike
Legal and military experts cited by Sky News said the incident could amount either to the deliberate targeting of a civilian site — which would constitute a war crime under international law — or to a catastrophic targeting failure that violated the rules of armed conflict.
The United States has not publicly explained the strike. According to the report, Washington has stated only that the incident is “being investigated.”
The lack of answers has deepened anger and grief among survivors and victims’ families.
Hadija told Sky News that former US President Donald Trump had previously spoken about helping “oppressed people” in Iran, but said the result in Minab was the deaths of schoolchildren.
Lingering fear
Although a fragile ceasefire is currently holding, residents say fear continues to dominate life in the town, with many worried the conflict could resume at any moment.
The local cemetery has already been expanded to accommodate the growing number of child graves. Every evening, families gather there to hold vigils for sons and daughters killed in the strike.
For many in Minab, the absence of a transparent investigation — and any public accountability — has left a lingering fear that the tragedy could one day be repeated.
SOURCE : SIASAT
