Over the past three months, hundreds of schoolgirls in Iran have fallen ill and been poisoned by what are believed to be noxious fumes seeping into classrooms, and some have even been hospitalised.
Iranian officials initially denied the incidents, but now say they are “deliberate attacks” on some 30 schools, which have been identified in local media reports, with some speculating that they may be aimed at trying to close girls’ schools in the country of more than 80 million people..
The reports of poisoning and illness come at a sensitive time in Iran, which is already facing months of protests, following the death of Mahsa Amini in September, following her arrest by the country’s morality police.
The attacks have raised fears that other girls may have been poisoned, apparently for seeking an education. Media reports stated that as a result, parents withdrew their daughters from classes, which led to the recent closure of some schools in Qom.
When did the first case appear?
The first cases appeared in late November in Qom, about 125 km southwest of the Iranian capital, Tehran, where students at the Noor Yazdanshahr Institute fell ill, and then again in December.
Other cases followed, as the female students complained of headaches, heart palpitations, and a sense of lethargy or inability to move..
Some of the female students indicated that they smelled something similar to tangerines, chlorine or cleaning materials, according to the Associated Press.
At first, the authorities did not link the cases. In the winter in Iran, temperatures often drop below freezing at night, and many schools are heated by natural gas, which raised speculation that poisoning might be carbon monoxide..
The Minister of Education denied the reports, describing them as “rumours”, but the cases appeared in girls-only schools, raising suspicions that it was not a coincidence..
formal moves
Finally, officials began to take the allegations seriously, and Iran’s public prosecutor ordered an investigation, saying that “there is a possibility of deliberate criminal acts.” The Iranian Ministry of Intelligence conducted investigations as well.
On Sunday, the official Iranian news agency, IRNA, published statements by the Deputy Minister of Health, Yunus Panahi, in which he said: “After several cases of poisoning of female students in Qom schools, it was found that some wanted to close schools, especially girls’ schools.”
A spokesman for the Ministry of Health, Pedram Bacain, stated that the poisoning “is not the result of a virus or microbe,” without elaborating..
For his part, a member of Parliament and the Education Committee, Ali Munadi, described the poisoning cases as “deliberate,” adding: “The existence of the devil’s will to prevent girls from education is a grave danger, and it is considered very bad news. We must seek to reach the root of the problem.”
