Nearly five months after a strike hit a school in the southern Iranian town of Minab, killing about 120 children, residents say their grief remains as raw as the day of the attack, with teachers and parents still struggling to comprehend the loss.
The strike devastated a school in the coastal town near the Strait of Hormuz, leaving a community shattered and searching for answers. Survivors and bereaved families describe classrooms turned silent and a town still marked by absence.
“What was their crime?” one mother asked, recalling the moment she learned her child was among the dead. Her question has become a refrain among grieving parents in a town where entire families lost their children.
A teacher who survived the attack described the horror of the aftermath, saying the images of that day have not faded. For many educators, the loss of so many pupils in a single strike has proven impossible to process.
The attack in Minab occurred against the backdrop of intensifying conflict across the region, a period that has seen repeated exchanges of strikes across the wider Middle East and mounting civilian casualties.
Minab, situated in Hormozgan province, sits close to one of the world’s most strategically sensitive waterways, a location that has placed the town near the frontlines of regional tensions.
Independent verification of casualty figures and the precise circumstances of the strike remains difficult, and accounts of such incidents have often been contested by the parties involved in the broader conflict.
For the families of Minab, however, the debate over responsibility offers little comfort. Months on, they continue to visit the site, tending to memorials and holding on to the memory of the children who did not return home.
The long-term impact on the community is expected to endure well beyond the immediate mourning period, as the town confronts the task of rebuilding and caring for survivors amid an uncertain regional outlook.