UN calls for probe into strike on Iran girls school, says 30,000 displaced in Lebanon
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The news: The United Nations has called for an investigation into an airstrike on Saturday which reportedly killed and injured dozens of girls in a primary school in Minab in Southern Iran.
The context: UN human rights office spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani said UN rights chief Volker Türk had been “deeply shocked” by the impacts of the hostilities on civilians and civilian infrastructure, and called for a “prompt, impartial and thorough investigation” into the circumstances of the Minab attack.
Shamdasani described the attack as “absolutely horrific…If there is any image that captures the essence of the destruction, despair and senselessness and cruelty of this conflict, those are the images.”
Without stating who is responsible for the strike, Shamdasani said that the “onus is on the forces that carried out the attack to investigate it. We call on them to make public the findings and to ensure accountability and redress for the victims,” she insisted.
On Monday the US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that US forces would not “deliberately target a school”, after Iranian media blamed the attack which it says killed over 160 people on US-Israeli strikes on the first day of the conflict.
Meanwhile, the human rights organisation said that at least 30,000 people have sought protection in shelters in Lebanon as of Monday this week, as Israel intensified its strikes on targets in the country.
Israel issued evacuation warnings to the residents of more than 53 Lebanese villages and conducted intense airstrikes across parts of southern Lebanon, the Bekaa and southern suburbs of Beirut, said aid UN refugee agency spokesperson Babar Baloch on Tuesday.
Further violence and displacement risk overwhelming host communities’ capacities, Baloch warned.
The sources: United Nations, UNHCR
