Dozens of girls were hospitalized this Saturday after being gas poisoned in at least six schools in Iran, amid a wave of poisonings in women’s educational centers in the Persian country.
The Iranian authorities and official media have confirmed poisonings this Saturday in six schools in the country, but groups of activists raise the number of female educational centers affected today to more than a dozen.
At least 27 female students from a school in the southern city of Kavar were hospitalized after suffering from nausea and dizziness, the spokesman for the provincial Department of Education, Hamidreza Shabani, told the Tasnim news agency.
The source indicated that the young women are “fine”.
In another case, 30 students from a school in the city of Urmia, in northwestern Iran, were admitted to medical centers this morning with symptoms of intoxication, according to the Tasnim agency, without citing official sources.
In the northern city of Zanjan, the number of those affected rose to 29 young people, who were taken to a hospital and are in good condition, according to the president of the city’s University of Medical Sciences, according to the Shargh newspaper.
Two schools in the cities of Hamedan and Kabudarahang, in the east of the country, also suffered poisonings that caused the hospitalization of an unknown number of young people, the spokesman for the Hamedan University of Medical Sciences, Alireza Toghiri, told the ISNA agency.
In addition, students from one of the schools in Karaj, neighboring Tehran, were also intoxicated, the province’s Director General of Education reported, according to Shargh.
The activist collective 1500tasvir reported cases of gas poisoning in more than a dozen cities across the country, in Tehran, Shahriar, Pakdasht, Borujerd, Safadasht, Lahijan and Rasht, in addition to those already confirmed by the authorities.
The activists shared videos on social networks of parents at the doors of schools and educational offices in various cities of the country shouting slogans against the Government for this wave of poisonings that has already affected more than a thousand students in female educational centers.
These incidents began in the Shi’ite holy city of Qom in November and have multiplied in recent days.
The young women have suffered from headaches, heart palpitations, nausea, dizziness and sometimes the inability to move their limbs after smelling a rotten orange and cleaning products.
The president of Iran, Ebrahim Raisí, affirmed yesterday that the “enemies” of the country are carrying out these gas attacks to cause chaos and assured that he will put an end to this “conspiracy”.
The Ministry of the Interior and the Ministry of Intelligence are investigating the poisonings, but have not yet reported any progress clarifying what is happening.
popular discontent
These incidents are fueling popular discontent, especially among parents, given the ineffectiveness of the authorities in stopping attacks that seem destined to paralyze the education of the students.
The country has experienced great tension in recent months due to the protests unleashed by the death of the young Mahsa Amini, after being arrested for not wearing the Islamic veil properly, a revolt with a marked feminist tone.
The students of schools and institutes participated in these protests, took off their veils, shouted “woman, life, freedom” and cut their sleeves to portraits of the Supreme Leader of Iran, Ali Khamenei, and Ayatollah Ruholá Khomeini.
State repression has managed to calm down the protests, in which almost 500 people have died and for which four demonstrators have been hanged.