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RFL/RE – Iran’s Education Minister Yusef Nuri says a special team in the Iranian capital has been tasked with investigating the poisoning of students in the central religious city of Qom.
Nuri made the comments during a February 16 visit to the Shahid Beheshti hospital in Qom, where some of the students are being treated.
Since last December, dozens of students, the majority of them girls, have been treated for poisoning symptoms in Qom, including nausea, headaches, coughing, breathing difficulties, and heart palpitations.
More than 100 students received treatment for poisoning symptoms earlier this week.
The cause of the poisonings is not clear. Authorities have said research is under way to determine the cause behind the mysterious incidents. Some reports suggested the students had fallen ill after inhaling an unknown gas.
On February 15, Qom Governor Abbas Zakerian said security bodies were looking into the poisonings.
“No agent causing the poisoning has been identified,” he said.
Earlier in the week, Nuri said that no microbial contamination has been found in students with poisoning symptoms in Qom, while adding that the students have not suffered lasting health problems.
On February 14, families of the affected students held a protest outside the governor’s office in Qom, slamming the authorities for failing to find the cause of the poisonings. They also called on authorities to ensure the safety of their children and hold online classes.
“We don’t want unsafe schools,” they chanted, while demanding a transparent investigation.
A source at Qom’s Vali Air hospital told RFE/RL’s Radio Farda that members of the intelligence branch of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) are present at the hospital, where some of the poisoned students are being treated.
“They take the results of the children’s blood tests to their own laboratory. We don’t know what is happening,” the source said.
A teacher in Qom said the poisonings have created fear among parents, as well as students.
“[Authorities] closed the schools for three days to investigate, but now schools are open and and no one has given any answer to the parents about the origin of these incidents,” the teacher, who did not want to be named, told Radio Farda.
“Families are worried about the health of their children. In our school of 250 students, only 50 attended classes,” the teacher said.
