'We found his sweater in the morgue, bloodied and dusty, but there was no body inside' - BERITAJA

MINAB, Iran — Posters featuring the faces of the children and their teachers — often smiling — now statement the boulevards and main quadrate of Minab, a metropolis that has been submerged successful a authorities of perpetual mourning.

They died successful a rocket onslaught connected the Shajareh Tayyibeh Elementary School connected Feb. 28, the first time U.S. and Israeli bombardments successful Iran. Among the dormant were 120 students, 26 teachers and respective parents who had rushed to the schoolhouse to retrieve their children aft proceeding reports of airstrikes connected Tehran. Most arrived excessively late.

In all, section authorities say, 156 died, including 1 teacher, Zohreh Shahriyari, who was six months pregnant.

The tile of the Shajareh Tayyebeh Elementary School successful Minab, Iran, collapsed onto classrooms, trapping those inside.

Minab has been transformed into a scenery of corporate grief, wherever the hit of regular life now includes predominant visits to the cemetery, wherever mini graves are arranged successful neat rows, conscionable steps apart, mimicking the bid of a schoolhouse assembly.

The outlines of the graves are, successful way, misleading because it suggests full bodies are buried there. In galore instances, location was small for families to retrieve aft the explosions and occurrence that followed.

Alieh Zakeri had 2 children astatine the school, Maryam Barazni, a fourth-grader, and Reza Barazni, a second-grader. “His hairsbreadth was straight; it utilized to autumn complete his face,” she said of Reza.

“My hubby recovered him successful the morgue,” Zakeri said. His begetter identified the boy not by his face, which had been destroyed, but by the athletics shorts and socks he had put connected that morning. “He had his arms and legs,” his mother said, “but they were successful pieces.”

Maryam, however, survived. A mother who had raced to the schoolhouse was capable to evacuate her and a fewer different students. Other parents, alerted by the schoolhouse that Iran was nether attack, besides converged connected the school.

A firefighter said galore of the dormant children were recovered wearing their backpacks, a motion they had been prepared to evacuate.

Somayeh Basardeh sits beside the sedate of her sister, Samira, a 38-year-old first-grade teacher, successful Minab. When rescuers cleared debris, they recovered her successful her classroom, still cradling 4 students who perished pinch her.

It’s unclear really galore group survived the attack, but Musa Khabar, a firefighter successful Minab, recalled the rescue of a woman who had fallen from an precocious level and and was partially pinned by concrete. First responders had to trim her hairsbreadth to free her.

Iranian authorities media person put the decease toll astatine 168 aliases higher, but Ebrahim Taheri, the charismatic of Minab, provided a breakdown of the 156 casualties section authorities counted.

Among the students, location were 73 boys and 47 girls. All 26 teachers were women. Also counted were 7 parents died, a schoolhouse autobus driver, a drugstore technician from an adjacent session and the 6-month-old fetus Shahriyari had been carrying.

Though President Trump initially blamed Iran for the attack, a preliminary investigation and news reports based connected master study propose a U.S.-made Tomahawk missile slammed into the school, perchance because of outdated intelligence. A guidelines of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps is located adjacent the school. The Pentagon has launched an investigation.

On the first time of Nowruz, the Persian New Year, successful March 2026, the family of Nasim Niestani gathers astatine her graveside successful Minab. Niestani, 40, taught 2nd grade. Her brother, who identified her, was truthful horrified by the authorities of her assemblage that he forbade the remainder of the family to spot her.

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1. The playground of the preschool conception astatine the Shajareh Tayyebeh Elementary School. All told, 73 boys and 47 girls were killed astatine the school, Iranian authorities said. 2. The interior of a schoolroom aft the Feb. 28, 2026, airstrike.

Alireza Dadkhodai, an emergency operations master pinch the Red Crescent, recalled the infinitesimal the missiles hit. Around 11:30 a.m., he was monitoring news of airstrikes connected Tehran via the messaging app Telegram erstwhile a monolithic detonation rocked Minab, followed by the emergence of a elephantine file of achromatic smoke.

Two much explosions followed wrong a minute.

“At first, I didn’t cognize the schoolhouse had been hit,” Dadkhodai said. He described a segment of chaos successful which half the organization of Minab seemed to beryllium moving toward the smoke.

Fire crews attempted to extinguish the flames erupting from the upper-floor classrooms. Walls crumbled and the tile collapsed.

Heavy machinery arrived 2 hours later to statesman the three-day excavation. Dadkhodai noted that parents worked alongside rescue teams, fueled by a hopeless dream that their children mightiness still beryllium live beneath the concrete.

“But everything we recovered was fragmented,” he said, describing the betterment of severed limbs, hairsbreadth and bloodied skulls from the debris.

Yaghoub and woman Masoumeh beryllium successful the chamber of their 7-year-old daughter, Fatemeh, who was killed successful the U.S. airstrike connected her schoolhouse successful Minab. On the greeting of the attack, Masoumeh had brushed Fatemeh’s hairsbreadth earlier sending her disconnected to people — a mundane ritual that would go a haunting last memory. Today, each that remains of that last greeting is simply a fewer strands of Fatemeh’s hairsbreadth caught successful her hairbrush.  

Atefeh Jamshidi cradles the favourite dolls of her 7-year-old daughter, Mahdis, who was killed successful the airstrike connected the Minab school. In the surviving room, Atefeh has arranged a memorial table—a quiet sanctuary filled pinch photographs and the fewer remnants of a life trim acold excessively short. 

Sirus and Asieh, the parents of 7-year-old Makan Nasiri, a first-grader killed successful the schoolhouse attack. Makan is the only kid whose assemblage was ne'er recovered contempt exhaustive searches done the rubble. His family could not find moreover a azygous trace of him. All that remains are his crumpled bluish sweater and 1 cream-colored shoe, recovered successful the schoolyard. “Where americium I expected to look for my son?” his begetter asks, his eyes filled pinch tears. For 57 days, contempt DNA testing connected the remains recovered from the morgue, his parents person recovered nary motion of their child.  

Kazem and Zahra beryllium successful the courtyard of their home, mourning their 10-year-old son, Danial, who was killed successful the U.S. airstrike connected the Minab school. A fifth-grader pinch a passion for football, Danial dreamed of becoming a master player. The blast was truthful convulsive that Danial’s look was unrecognizable; his begetter was forced to place his boy by the unsocial style of his teeth successful the metropolis morgue. For Zahra, the days are an endless rhythm of grief. “I person thing near to do but weep,” she says.  

Ali Soleimani, a coach successful Minab, stands pinch woman Ameneh, right, and girl Azra successful their home. The onslaught claimed their daughter, Zahra, 12, and 8-year-old grandson, Mohammad. While Zahra was identified and laid to rest, the hunt for Mohammad lasted 3 agonizing days. He was yet recovered crushed beneath a monolithic actual slab, his assemblage and look unrecognizable. His mother could only place her boy by the number “70” connected his sports jersey and the colour of his socks.  

Ali Nassiri, a section welder, spent 30 consecutive hours astatine the site, utilizing his master devices to trim done alloy beams. The sights he witnessed, he said, are permanently etched into his psyche.

The threat was not constricted to the first strike. Mostafa Karimi, caput of the section Culture and Guidance Office, reported that connected the 2nd time of betterment efforts, a dense actual slab fell from the precocious structure, crushing the limb of a man who was searching for his child. The man’s limb had to beryllium amputated.

For the families, the scary shifted from the ruins of the schoolhouse to the acold tiles of the morgue.

Mohaddeseh Falahat mislaid 2 children: Mahdieh, a sixth-grader, and Amin, a first-grader. She identified Amin by his fingernails. “He had trim them himself the nighttime before, very unevenly,” she said. She recovered her daughter’s assemblage successful a “distressing state” beneath the ruins.

Fouzieh Ranjbari, the mother of 7-year-old Alireza Shahrjou, spent 3 days searching for her son. When she yet recovered him astatine a mortuary successful Minab, she recognized him by his scent and the mini information of his look — his rima and eyebrows — that had escaped the flames.

Some victims were identified done DNA analysis, including Razieh Zamani, a 34-year-old teacher. Her family had waited successful agony for a month, praying that moreover a mini portion of her assemblage would beryllium recovered truthful they could clasp a due burial.

Each genitor is processing the calamity successful his aliases her ain way.

Tayebeh Farahizadeh goes into the chamber of her 7-year-old daughter, Esra, to beryllium surrounded by Esra’s belongings, holding onto the dolls that she says still transportation her daughter’s scent. Esra, a first-grader who dreamed of becoming a pilot, was recovered successful the school’s dream hallway alongside her relative Fatemeh Yazdanpanah.

The mother of Setayesh Ali Hosseini, a 9-year-old fourth-grader, finds herself incapable to participate her daughter’s room.

“I’m acrophobic to spell wrong and not find her,” Masoumeh Mehran said, clinging to the dream that 1 time “the doorway will unfastened and Setayesh will locomotion successful wearing her schoolhouse uniform.”

Mourners and section Iranian officials stitchery for the funeral of 2 victims 30 days aft the bombing of the school. The remains, consisting only of fragmented insubstantial recovered from the rubble, were identified done DNA testing arsenic student Mohammad-Taha Jafari and coach Razieh Zamani.

Women transportation the casket of Razieh Zamani, a 34-year-old coach astatine the Shajareh Tayyebeh school, toward the Minab cemetery. It was only done DNA study weeks aft the airstrike that parts of Zamani’s assemblage were yet identified.

Among those helping hole victims for funeral was Kazem Pourzahedian, a cloth merchant successful Minab who for 10 years has volunteered astatine a section mortuary to execute the ritual washing of the dead.

The process began 1 time astatine 4 p.m. and vanished the adjacent greeting astatine 8. He worked connected about 60 antheral students.

Few bodies were intact. To minimize the psychological distress of the families during the funeral process, Pourzahedian said he utilized fabric and insubstantial to reconstruct the beingness shape of the victims wrong the shrouds. To each shroud he attached a statement successful red: “This shroud must not beryllium opened nether immoderate circumstances.”

At the Minab cemetery, a caller statement of graves marks the last resting spot of 5 of the students killed successful the rocket strike: siblings Esra and Salma Zakeri, on pinch Khadijeh Darvishi, Masih Salari and Makan Nasiri.

Makan’s casket, however, is quiet — a symbolic funeral for a kid whose assemblage was ne'er recovered from the wreckage. DNA testing has been utilized to place the remains of immoderate victims and to return them to their families. Of the 156 group killed Feb. 28, he remains the only 1 unaccounted for.

Samaneh Kamali, 30, the only coach not killed astatine the school, sits successful the section acquisition section office, sorting done the salvaged belongings of her students. She had near the schoolhouse conscionable an hr earlier the airstrike to be a relative’s funeral. Upon proceeding news of the attack, she rushed back, only to find that her schoolroom and each her students were gone.

Sirus Nasiri, Makan’s father, recalled really the boy loved sports. On the time of the onslaught — which was besides his 7th day — the first-grader wore a bluish sweater because of the greeting chill.

“We recovered that bluish sweater successful the morgue, bloodied and dusty, but location was nary assemblage wrong it,” Nasiri said.

Of the 23 students successful Makan’s class, 4 were absent that day. The different 18, who were killed, were identified.

Weeks aft the attack, Nasiri went backmost to the schoolhouse and recovered 1 of Makan’s shoes successful the grass. But location was still nary trace of his son.

Five graves people the last resting places of students killed successful the rocket strike. One casket, for Makan Nasiri, is quiet — a symbolic funeral for a kid whose assemblage was ne'er recovered.

Tayebeh Farahizadeh stands successful the chamber of her 7-year-old daughter, Esra, who was killed successful the bombing. She spends her days surrounded by Esra’s belongings, holding onto the dolls that she says still transportation her daughter’s scent.

Times unit writer Steve Padilla successful Los Angeles contributed to this report.