The funeral procession has begun for the victims of the deadly strike that targeted an elementary school in the southern Iranian province of Hormozgan during the latest Israeli-American aggression against the Islamic Republic, as grieving families gathered to bid farewell to the children killed in the attack.
Mourners filled the streets on Tuesday morning carrying small coffins and photographs of the young victims, who perished as a result of the atrocity against the Shajareh Tayyebeh School in Minab, as cries and prayers echoed throughout the city.
The ceremony came three days after the US-Israeli terrorist strike that devastated the facility, leaving 165 children dead and nearly 100 others injured.
Following the tragedy, Minab’s prosecutor confirmed the scale of the casualties, denouncing the “criminal” and “savage” attack.
“Among the martyrs are also educational staff and parents of the students,” he noted at the time.
The entirely civilian two-story building housed a boys’ school on the ground floor and a girls’ school on the first floor.
Chief Justice of Hormozgan Province, Mojtaba Qahremani, said on Tuesday that so far, the bodies of 140 martyrs of the school have been identified, and burial permits have been issued for them.
The identities of 25 bodies have not yet been confirmed, he added.
Due to the intensity of the explosion, some of these bodies could not be identified through conventional methods and require DNA testing, he added.
The remnants of the enemy’s weapons at the site of this crime have been discovered, seized, and collected, and based on this, the matter of this crime is being pursued in domestic and international judicial bodies, he said.
In the immediate aftermath, thick smoke rose from the wreckage as debris scattered across nearby roads.
Distressed families rushed to the scene as emergency teams searched through the rubble.
President Masoud Pezeshkian has offered condolences over the “heartbreaking tragedy following the treacherous attack that has grieved the hearts of all Iranians and free people.”
He added that “this inhuman, brutal act is another dark page in the endless record of the aggressors’ crimes against this land, which will never be erased from the historical memory of our nation.”
Including the victims, more than 550 people have been killed so far throughout the aggression that began on Saturday, according to Iran’s Red Crescent Society.
