BBC News has reported from Shajareh Tayyebeh Primary School in Minab, southern Iran, where a strike on 28 February killed 156 people, including 120 children, according to the Minab prosecutor’s office.
The school stood beside an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps compound. BBC News said satellite imagery showed the neighbouring compound had been struck several times, while experts cited by the broadcaster said the evidence indicated that US forces hit the school. The United States has not accepted responsibility.
US media outlets have reported, citing people familiar with a military investigation, that investigators believe US forces were likely to have carried out the strike unintentionally. The BBC said the Department of Defense and US military officials told it the investigation was continuing and that there were no further updates.
A teacher at the school, Amaineh Nademi, told the BBC she had been teaching first-grade pupils when explosions began nearby and the school started sending children home. She said only five of her 15 pupils remained in her classroom when the building was hit, filling rooms with smoke and causing parts of the structure to collapse.
Reza Besharati, a worker with the Iranian Red Crescent Society, told the BBC he was among the first rescuers to arrive and that families had crowded the roads around the school as they searched for children. He said rescuers did not find survivors in the wreckage.
The BBC also spoke to Masoumeh Mehran Shekhabadi, whose nine-year-old daughter Setayesh was killed. She said she visits her daughter’s grave daily and described the child as having wanted to become a teacher.
The Trump administration has not released the findings of its investigation. BBC News reported that several US outlets have said preliminary findings pointed to the possible use of outdated intelligence that treated the school as part of a military site.
Historical satellite images cited by the BBC show the school area had previously formed part of the IRGC complex, but had been separated by walls since 2016 and had its own entrances and yards. The broadcaster also reported that information identifying the site as a school was publicly available online before the strike.
The head of US Central Command told a congressional committee in May that the investigation was complex because the school was on what he described as an active IRGC cruise missile base. Iran’s foreign ministry rejected that claim as baseless, according to the BBC.
