The riddle of a gas cloud that made Iranian students ill
At first, the pupils at Khayyam Girls' School thought it was a gas leak. But as they rushed out of their classrooms on Tuesday (local time) they began falling to the ground unconscious, one after another.
"I had never felt anything like it," said one, who gave her name as Parisa. She had a sudden headache and her body went numb, then everything went dark.
"When I came to, I thought I had died," she added. "I was in excruciating pain. I couldn't breathe and was shaking and people were crying all around me. It was a horrific scene."
For months, during an uprising in Iran which began with demonstrations by women and girls against wearing the hijab, the protesters have never felt safe from the security services.
READ MORE:
* Iran's president orders probe of poisoning at girls' schools
* Iranian girls being ‘deliberately poisoned’ to stop them going to school
* After a wave of support Iranians are outraged with their government
The trouble was triggered by the death of Mahsa Amini, 22, in police custody after she was arrested for improper dress. Hundreds of people have been killed in the unrest that followed. Many of the initial protests took place in girls' secondary schools, with teenagers filming themselves removing their headscarves.
Parisa and her classmates were just some of hundreds of victims of a mysterious sickness that has struck girls' schools since then. At first it was suggested school food had been poisoned. Now the authorities are investigating whether gas is being used in some way.
The incident at Khayyam in Pardis, about 17 kilometres northeast of Tehran, was the biggest yet. "We had a feeling they would come for us eventually," Parisa, 15, said. "I never felt safe here. Mothers who had rushed to the school were standing over their children lying on the floor and begging for medical care, but some of them were just standing in stunned silence."
Some of the girls gasped for breath. Others scrambled to reach the ambulances. There have been no deaths, but Parisa said that she still had severe burning in her chest, headaches and breathlessness. Even before the unrest, Pardis had refused to wear a hijab, which got her in trouble often with the police and the school authorities.
"I wish one day women here would be free from threat and they can make the country more attractive just with their hair," she said. "It is quite clear that this is a misogynistic regime and so far its biggest opponents have been women. I would rather die than bring children into this regime."
Morteza Abbaszadeh, an Iranian defence journalist, said the attacks were reminiscent of the chemical warfare used by Saddam Hussein to suppress unrest in Iraq during the 1980s and 1990s.
"There is a worry that this is yet another use of chemical warfare as a retribution against the protest hotspots in Iran," he said. "These incidents are focused on girls' high schools. On some occasions, as many as 20 or more schools were attacked on the same day in different cities. Such a vast and targeted operation requires logistics and authorisation that is possessed only at the highest echelons of the state."
Tests are being carried out to ascertain the agents used, but witnesses all reported smells like mint, fruit and vegetables before feeling unwell.
VAHID SALEMI/AP
Wednesday (local time) was the worst single day since the suspected poisonings began. About 25 incidents were reported across the country with 343 girls affected, according to the Human Rights Activists News Agency in Iran.
Ravina Shamdasani, spokesperson for the UN commissioner for human rights, said: "We are concerned about these allegations that girls are being deliberately targeted."
Ahmad Vahidi, the interior minister and a former Revolutionary Guards commander, has been put in charge of the investigation.
The health and medical education minister, Bahram Einollahi, said a "mild poison" had been detected while the country's deputy education minister, Younes Panahi, went as far as saying that the attacks were intentional, but were "not war chemicals".
He said: "The poisoned students do not need aggressive treatment, and a large percentage of the chemical agents used are treatable."
THE TIMES, LONDON
No comments:
Post a Comment