UN investigates strike on Iranian girls' school
A UN fact-finding group has begun investigating an air strike that hit Shajareh Tayyebeh primary school in the southern city of Minab on the first day of the US-Israeli war on Iran.
The attack, which killed at least 175 people, most of them children, is also being probed by US military investigators, with preliminary findings saying the US military was responsible for the attack, Reuters reported.
The New York Times reported that officers at US Central Command had created the target coordinates for the strike using outdated data provided by the Defense Intelligence Agency, citing people briefed on the investigation.
The attack on the school occurred simultaneously with missiles striking nearby Iranian naval targets.
Iran has also blamed the US for the strike, describing it an "unforgivable" war crime.
"We're at an early stage of that investigation," Max du Plessis, a member of the UN Fact-Finding Mission on Iran, told a press conference in Geneva on Tuesday.
"It's clear to us that whatever happens in respect of such an event, given the innocent lives that have been lost, there is a critical need for such an investigation to be done and for an independent outcome to follow."
It was first reported by Middle East Eye that the schoolgirls were killed by "double tap" strikes, with the second missile killing sheltering survivors, according to witnesses interviewed at the scene.
“When the first bomb hit the school, one of the teachers and the principal moved a group of students to the prayer hall to protect them,” one of the Red Crescent medics said, citing conversations he had at the time with survivors.
“The principal called the parents and told them to come and pick up their children. But the second bomb hit that area as well. Only a small number of those who had taken shelter survived.”
Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baqaei said there had been a “double-tap American Tomahawk missile” on 28 February that “slaughtered 168 Iranian little angels”.
Hassan Fartousi, secretary general of Iran’s National Commission for Unesco, also told Al Jazeera he believed the school had been struck by two separate missiles.
The attack ranks among the worst incidents of civilian deaths in decades of US military strikes in the Middle East.
Some human rights groups like Amnesty International have already claimed the US was responsible. The Trump administration has repeatedly denied targeting civilians.
In another investigation, the Fact-Finding Mission on Iran on Monday found an Israeli strike on Tehran’s Evin prison during last June’s war, which killed more than 80 people, amounted to a war crime.
This article was sourced from Middle East Eye.
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