Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi has blamed a wave of poisonings of hundreds of schoolgirls around the country on the country’s enemies.
The so-far unexplained poison attacks at more than 30 schools in at least four cities started in November in Iran’s Shi’ite Muslim holy city of Qom, prompting some parents to take their children out of school.
Iran’s health minister said on Tuesday that hundreds of girls in different schools have suffered and some politicians have suggested they could have been targeted by religious groups opposed to girls’ education.
Raisi, speaking to a crowd in southern Iran on Friday in a speech carried live on state television, blamed the poisoning on Iran’s enemies.
“This is a security project to cause chaos in the country whereby the enemy seeks to instil fear and insecurity among parents and students,” he said.
He did not say who those enemies were although Iranian leaders habitually accuse the United States and Israel, among others, of acting against it.
Separately, a senior Iranian official said a fuel tanker found next to a school in a Tehran suburb and which had also been spotted in two other cities was probably involved in the poisonings.
Authorities seized the tanker and arrested its driver, Pardis suburb deputy governor Reza Karimi Saleh told the Tasnim news agency.
Read the article in The Canberra Times (AAP).