new case of intoxication in a girls’ school

Three weeks after the last case, a new case of intoxication in a girls’ school in Iran was listed on Tuesday, the day after classes resumed after two weeks of vacation, according to local media.

Twenty students from a school in the city of Tabriz (north-west) were taken to hospital for respiratory problems, the official Irna agency reported.

Multiplication of cases

“Emergency services were rushed to the scene after a number of students» reported «difficulty breathing“said the chief of the emergencies of the city. But, he said, none of them were in serious condition.

Since the end of November, many schools, most of them girls, have been affected by sudden poisoning by gases or toxic substances which have caused fainting and fainting sometimes leading to hospitalization. In total, authorities listed “more than 5000 studentsaffected in more than 230 establishments in 25 of the 31 provinces of the country. This series ended after the announcement at the beginning of March by the authorities of a hundred arrests.

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A few days earlier, the Iranian Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, had called for “severe penalties“, going as far as the death penalty, against the people who would be found responsible for these poisonings, denouncing “unforgivable crimes“. Faced with the proliferation of cases, parents of students and residents had mobilized to express their concern and call on the authorities to act.

The case began two months after the beginning of the protest movement sparked in Iran by the death on September 16 of Mahsa Amini, a young woman detained by the morality police who accused her of having broken the strict dress code imposing in particular on women wearing the veil.