Claire Cameron is a novelist, essayist and author of the memoir How to Survive a Bear Attack, which recently won the Governor-General’s Literary Award for Non-Fiction. The piece was assembled using over 30 news reports and articles about a missile strike on a school in Minab, Iran on Feb. 28, 2026, for which an ongoing military investigation has determined that the United States is responsible.
Shajareh Tayyebeh Elementary School
The six-day working week in Iran runs from Saturday to Thursday school was in session classes were underway
When the first bomb hit the school one of the teachers and the principal moved a group of students to the prayer hall to protect them
Parents received panicked phone calls telling them to pick up their children “they told us the school had been attacked,” the father said
Then the jet returned and pounded the same location the second strike hit before he could reach her
The blast destroyed much of the building a crescent shape punched into its roof
Verified clips of the aftermath show smoke rising from a building as crowds gather people can be heard screaming in panic
Children’s bodies lying partly buried under the debris colourful backpacks covered with blood a very small child’s severed arm
We could only identify her from her school bag which she was still holding my little girl was completely burned
The death toll was at least 175 people most of them children girls between seven and 12 years old
A mass funeral for the children was held in Minab on Tuesday crowds filling the streets to honour the victims
Mothers and fathers who had lost their daughters photos of small coffins and rows of fresh graves
A grieving mother mourned my Ali was beautiful my Ali was tall Ali, you are my pride.