Dozens of Iranian schoolgirls have been poisoned again

“At least 60 female students were poisoned at a girls’ school in Haftikal,” Erb News reported. Haftekal is located in the southwestern province of Khuzestan. Students were also poisoned in five schools in northwest Ardabil. The girls showed “symptoms of anxiety, shortness of breath, and headache.”

An “unknown number” of primary school students in Urmia were also found dead after a gas accident, according to ELNA.

On Friday, state television quoted MP Hamid Reza Kazemi, who heads the committee in charge of the matter. According to Kazemi, the final report of that committee will be published in the coming weeks.

For months, Iran has been plagued by mysterious poisonings in schools. The first cases were reported in November, and meanwhile, according to Iranian media, there are thousands of incidents. The official balance sheet on Friday showed more than 5,000 students in more than 230 schools in 25 of the country’s 31 provinces.

The Iranian government assumes the attacks are targeted, because girls’ schools are almost exclusively affected. Schoolgirls are treated in hospitals across the country. Parents and relatives are angry, also because there is still no official explanation, and more safety for schoolchildren during the demonstrations has been requested.

The events added to the pressure on the Iranian government after the protests over the death of Mahsa Amini, who died on September 16 of last year after being arrested by the deputy police, which has already led to the worst political crisis in the country in decades.