Crisis over suspected poisonings of school girls in Iran escalates

A crisis over suspected poisonings targeting Iranian schoolgirls escalated Sunday as authorities acknowledged over 50 schools were struck in a wave of possible cases The poisonings have spread further fear among parents as Tehran has faced months of unrestIt remains unclear who or what is responsible since the alleged poisonings began in November in the Shiite holy city of QomReports now suggest schools across 21 of Iranrsquos 30 provinces have seen suspected cases with girlsrsquo schools the site of nearly all the incidentsThe attacks have raised fears that other girls could be poisoned apparently just for going to school Education for girls has never been challenged in the over 40 years since the 1979 Islamic RevolutionIran has been calling on the Taliban in neighbouring Afghanistan to have girls and women return to schoolAlso Read Nations reach accord to protect marine life on high seasInterior Minister Ahmad Vahidi on Saturday said without elaborating that investigators had recovered ldquosuspicious samplesrdquo in the course of their investigations into the incidents according to the staterun IRNA news agencyHe called for calm among the public while also accusing the ldquoenemyrsquos media terrorismrdquo of inciting more panic over the alleged poisoningsHowever it wasnrsquot until the poisonings received international media attention that hardline President Ebrahim Raisi announced an investigation into the incidents on WednesdayVahidi said at least 52 schools had been affected by suspected poisonings Iranian media reports have put the number of schools at over 60 At least one boyrsquos school reportedly has been affectedVideos of upset parents and schoolgirls in emergency rooms with IVs in their arms have flooded social mediaMaking sense of the crisis remains challenging given that nearly 100 journalists have been detained by Iran since the start of protests in September over the death of 22yearold Mahsa Amini She had been detained by the countryrsquos morality police and later diedThe security force crackdown on those protests has seen at least 530 people killed and 19700 others detained according to Human Rights Activists in Iran 21No of Iranrsquos provinces with suspected cases52No of schools with suspected casesIran makes pledge of cooperation to the IAEA Iran has given sweeping assurances to the UN nuclear watchdog that it will finally assist a longstalled investigation into uranium particles found at undeclared sites and even reinstall removed monitoring equipment the watchdog said on Saturday The International Atomic Energy Agency and Iran issued a joint statement on IAEA chief Rafael Grossirsquos return from a trip to Tehran just two days before a quarterly meeting of the agencyrsquos 35nation Board of GovernorsThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever