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‘War crime, not miscalculation’: Iran on US Tomahawk missile strike on Minab school that ‘killed 175 students, teachers’
Abbas Aragchi insisted that the attack on the school in Minab "was not a mere 'incident' nor a 'miscalculation'."
Iran's foreign minister Abbas Araghchi on Friday came down heavily on the United States and Israel on Friday and called the attack on a school in Iran at the beginning of the ongoing war a “calculated assault” and a “crime against humanity”.
While addressing the United Nations Human Rights Council through a video, Araghchi said that the bomb attack on Shajarah Tayyebeh elementary school in southern Iran's Minab city was a "calculated, phased assault" and that “more than 175 students and teachers were slaughtered in cold blood” in the strike.
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He added that as the US and Israel claim to possess advanced warfare technologies, no one can believe the strike on the school was not “deliberate and intentional”.
“At a time when the American-Israeli aggressors, in their own assertions, possess the most advanced technologies, and the highest-precision military and data systems, no one can believe that the attack on the school was anything other than deliberate and intentional,” the Iran foreign minister said.
Calling the strike a “war crime” and a “crime against humanity”, Aragchi said that such an act "demands unequivocal condemnation by all and unambiguous accountability for the culprits".
"This atrocity cannot be justified, cannot be concealed, and must not be met with silence and indifference," he said.
Aragchi insisted that the attack "was not a mere 'incident' nor a 'miscalculation'."
“The United States' contradictory remarks aimed at justifying their crime could not, in any manner, elude their responsibility.”
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Attack on school happened due to outdated data, says report
The attack on the school in Minab took place on February 28, the first day of the war and remains one of the most devastating sights of the ongoing aggression since. Aragchi's remarks come as the war has hit the one-month mark on Friday, March 27.
Iran and the United States, backed by Israel, began exchanging strikes on February 28 when one of the missiles, a US Tomahawk cruise missile, hit the school due to a mistake, according to preliminary findings of a US military probe as reported by the New York Times.
According to the NYT report, the US sought to hit an Iranian base and the school building which came under fire was previously a part of that base. The target coordinates were set using the old data which led to the tragedy.
However, the United States President Donald Trump had initially suggested that Iran may have hit the school itself, despite the country not possessing any Tomahawk missiles.
(With inputs from AFP)
