In northern Iran, schoolgirls in pain. Students from seven girls’ schools in the city of Ardabil were indisposed in the morning by gas fumes and 108 people were taken to hospital, the head of the hospital department told the Tasnim news agency.
The general condition of the students, who suffered from breathing difficulties and nausea, is evolving favorably, he said. The media also reported new cases of poisoning in at least three establishments in Tehran. In a high school in Tehransar, in the west of the capital, students were “poisoned by the projection of a kind of spray”, indicated for its part the news agency Fars, which quotes parents of students . The same source reported the mobilization of emergency services on site.
Voices denounce the silence of the authorities
According to estimates given on Wednesday by the spokeswoman for the parliamentary health committee, Zahra Sheikhi, nearly 800 students have been affected since the first cases of respiratory poisoning in the holy city of Qom in late November and 400 others in Boroujerd, in the west of the country. According to the results of toxicological examinations provided by the Ministry of Health and quoted by a deputy, the toxic substance used in Qom was composed in particular of N2 gas, based on nitrogen, used in industry or as agricultural fertilizer.
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi on Wednesday instructed Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi to “follow the case as soon as possible” and “inform” the public about the investigation in order to “sweep away the concerns of the families”, according to the website of the presidency. In the afternoon, Ahmad Vahidi announced to the press that the authorities were still investigating the “possible responsible” for the poisonings but that no arrests had yet been made.
The case caused a wave of anger in the country, where voices denounced the silence of the authorities in the face of the growing number of schools affected. Some schoolgirls were briefly hospitalized but none were seriously affected.