20 schoolgirls were taken to a hospital with shortness of breath, the state news agency IRNA reported on Tuesday. None of the girls are in any danger of death, the chief of the local emergency department, Asghar Jafari, told Irna. The incident happened two days after the schoolgirls returned from a two-week holiday for the Nowruz Spring Festival.
Poisonings at girls’ schools in Iran have been reported again and again since the end of November. Thousands of schoolgirls suffered symptoms including nausea and shortness of breath after noticing “unpleasant” odors on school grounds. Some of them fainted or had to be hospitalized.
More than 5,000 schoolgirls have been affected since November
According to official figures, more than 5,000 schoolgirls in more than 230 institutions in 25 of the country’s 31 provinces have been affected since November. At the beginning of March, Iran reported that it had arrested more than 100 people in connection with the poisoning.
In view of the accumulation of cases, the parents of the affected students demonstrated and called on the government to act.
The mass poisonings came two months after nationwide protests for more women’s rights and democratic reforms began. These were triggered by the death of the young Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini, who died after being arrested by the vice squad because of an improperly worn headscarf.
