Imagine taking your child to school, only to receive a call from your daughter that she can’t breath and is feeling sick. Worried, you get to the school- fast, only to find chaos and in some cases school gates closed and your child screaming on the other side.
This has been a reality for thousands of parents in Iran over the last 5 months. As of 22 April 2023, more than 430 schools in Iran have come under chemical attack. At least three children have died from exposure to these chemicals.
What these chemicals are – nobody knows. Symptoms cited include: nausea, shortness of breath, headache and paralysis.
How does it feel to be exposed to these gases? Most students and parents don’t feel safe coming forward to share their stories, which is what makes the following first hand account so important. It shows culpability on all levels – from schools, to the medical profession. It also shows the government’s sinister hand in all of this. Crazily enough, the government is trying to pin young schoolgirls as the perpetrators not the victims. The widespread nature, the systematic way in which schools are being targeted and the different levels of oppression is beyond what a school child could achieve. Only the Islamic Republic would do this to their young.
In February of 2023, I was poisoned due to our school being chemically attacked, and I am yet to have recovered; Even after two months have passed. I study in …… school ……. city. Our school has two separate floors.
That day at 9 a.m., the students studying on the upper floor went to the principal’s office complaining about dizziness and headache, saying there was an awful smell in the classrooms. But the manager refused to call the parents or follow up on the matter and said they were making it up and pretending to be like Qom and Tehran students who were poisoned.
At 12 p.m., an emergency alarm was rung in the school, and it was announced through the microphone, that everyone should evacuate the classrooms immediately; But the teachers kept all the students in the classrooms by force for ten more minutes. They didn’t allow us to leave until we escaped. I wasn’t feeling too bad, but when the teacher didn’t let us go, I felt a little nauseous and dizzy, which I ignored.
When I reached the yard, I noticed that about thirty students had trouble breathing and fainting. The principal gets scared when he sees the situation and calls the parents to come and collect their children. The father of one of the students was nearby and made his way to the school very quickly. Seeing the conditions, he immediately calls the ambulance and informs them that the school has been attacked. The ambulance arrives, and the atmosphere becomes tense; the rest of the healthy children are crying and worried for their friends. So, the principal and vice principal sent those who were healthy outside the school and told us to go home. We were standing in front of the school when something was thrown from the bridge in front of the school. Because we were all focused on our friends and what had happened, we had no idea who or what exploded, but the sound of the explosion was so loud that it seemed as if it shook the ground beneath our feet.
After the explosion, yellow and brown smoke covered the school grounds. I remember that my friends were scared and crying. I breathed in the gas twice and started to feel dizzy and felt like my lungs were on fire. I could only tell my friends that I wasn’t feeling well. They begged me not to joke around, but when I started losing consciousness and struggling to breathe, they understood that I was also poisoned. I could hear them screaming and shouting my name, but I couldn’t respond. I knew what was happening around me and that they were taking me to the ambulance, but the gas had taken effect, and my whole body was numb. My breathing was forced, and I had no control over my body to the extent, that I couldn’t keep myself in the seat of the ambulance. Even with the slightest movements, I was thrown around.
After we arrived at the hospital, they took us to the emergency room on a stretcher, and the first thing they did was take a blood test, then gave us an oxygen mask and IV fluid. At least an hour I had passed when I regained consciousness and realised that 107 students of our school had been poisoned. It was so crowded, to the point that some students were laid down on the floor to be treated. After an hour, I felt very fatigued and couldn’t resist falling asleep. My family got worried and informed the doctor. The emergency doctor forced me to stay awake by pinching and slapping . 18 other people who were in critical condition and I were hospitalized, and the others were discharged casually. But in the evening, about 50 people returned to the ER because they felt sick at home. It was decided that the next day, I and those who were hospitalized would be discharged, But in the middle of the night, my whole body went numb. I couldn’t even move my fingers. I had no feeling anywhere in my body and felt completely numb.
I was terrified that I would stay like this for the rest of my life and be unable to move my arms and legs. It felt like death. Nurses and doctors brushed it off, saying it was just a symptom of stress and anxiety. The feeling of numbness didn’t leave my body until the morning.
When the doctor came to discharge us, he made us walk a few steps to determine if we were feeling well enough to go home. Within the first steps, I fell to the ground due to dizziness. The doctor realized he could not pass me by, so I was admitted for another night. Three days passed, and, in those days, almost everyone got better except 7 other people and me. Everything was fine until the third day when the responsible government officials came to visit us, but after the third day, not a single person followed up on our situation.
It was announced everywhere that all the students were doing well and in perfect health. But our misery started from the third day onwards. Since that day, as if this chemical had just taken effect, we started having asthma attacks. We were shaking; our oxygen levels dropped; we were barely conscious and did not understand our surroundings. The attacks lasted for one to two hours, sometimes up to three hours, as we suffered and struggled to breathe. We were fighting for the lives that were our human rights. After that, the attacks continued, even until today; But no one ever reached out to us or took a step for our well-being.
We were in the hospital for 18 days; during those days, the nurses and doctors treated us poorly and did not spare us any sarcastic comments. We were tested every day, but when the results came, the results numbers of all eight people were the same. It seemed that the only difference between the tests was our names. The doctors told us we had a neurological problem, referring us to a neurologist. After the examination, the neurologist prescribed a CT scan, MRI and EMG. We did everything, but it didn’t result in anything except damage to our bodies. The results of CT scan, MRI and EMG were manipulated; Basically, we were the healthiest sick people ever, and from their point of view, we were making it all up.
The nurses would mock us and make accusations which were way beyond our tolerance. We were under immense mental and physical pressure from all sides, and we couldn’t let the nurses shamelessly accuse us of being an addict and mentally ill. The neurologist manipulated our tapes in front of us, and when we protested that this manipulation wasn’t standard, he grumbled that he was the doctor, not us. He took advantage of our lack of knowledge in medical science. On the last day, the doctor forcibly discharged us, and the summary for the 18 days of misery was: Name Last name Symptoms of the patient: Body tremors, Shortness of breath and… Doctor’s diagnosis: Refer to a psychologist. Nervous and mental problems That Easy!
We were all healthy in every way before this incident, and now we became physically and mentally ill children, with all of it is rooted in our childhood. We really suffered a lot. No matter what we say, there is no end to the obvious atrocities of the Islamic government; But the list is so long that my hand hurts from writing them all. I will talk about our problems in detail to prove to those who believe that this is not the work of the Islamic Republic, how much of a villain Seyyed Ali Khamenei is. I said this all so that everyone understands, these chemical attacks are much worse than everyone thinks. We aren’t feeling well at all. To go to the brink of death and come back in every moment and to struggle for every breath is not something our youth wishes for.
What can you do?
The girls and children of Iran deserve to be able to go to school free of the fear of mass poisoning. Each of the actions below should only take few minutes, but collectively will create impact:
- Please WRITE to your local MP to ask for an independent fact finding mission to be sent to Iran to collect evidence, and determine the cause;
- Write to UNICEF to demand that they do more to protect the girls of Iran and their right to an education; and
- Share this post and this story. Make sure to also write to news outlets to demand that they cover this story. So little of this important story is reaching the mainstream.
Women, Life, Freedom 