Families arrive at the cemetery after sunset. They come carrying rugs and cushions, food and water, and candles or lanterns that they place on the small, freshly dug graves. Parents carefully clean the tombstones of their buried children. They arrange the spaces around them and settle in for the night—a quiet vigil that will continue until dawn.
The collective grief in Minab, Iran is unfathomable. At least 168 children, most of them girls aged between seven and 12 years old, were killed in a single strike on the Shajareh Tayyiba elementary school on February 28, in the opening hours of the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran.
As the holy month of Ramadan comes to a close this week—a time when prayers carry special weight—families have continued to gather at the cemetery after iftar, the sunset meal to break the fast, to pray beside their dead children in the dark.
Amina Karimi, 42, lost her seven-year-old daughter, Leila, in the strike. She comes to the cemetery every night.
“Ramadan this year arrived carrying a grief I have never known before,” Karimi told Drop Site News. “I read the Quran in a low voice and recite prayers I dedicated to her, and I speak to her as though she can hear me.” She pauses. “Sometimes I close my eyes and recall her laugh, her voice, how she used to run at school, laugh with her friends, and how we used to dream of her future.” Karimi stays at the graveyard through the night despite the cold that cuts through her clothes. “The night is heavy and the cold bites. But the dim candlelight gives me some warmth.”
Evidence collected by human rights groups and media outlets strongly point to the U.S. conducting the Tomahawk missile strike—one of the deadliest single attacks on children in memory. Preliminary findings of an internal U.S. military investigation determined the U.S. was responsible and the school was likely bombed based on outdated targeting data. The Trump administration has not admitted to anything.