UN human rights chief calls on US to conclude probe into Iran school strike

BBC:

The UN’s human rights chief has urged the US to conclude its investigation and publish its findings into a deadly strike on an Iranian primary school that happened on the first day of the war last month.

The bombing “evoked a visceral horror,” Volker Türk said at an urgent debate in the UN Human Rights Council, saying there “must be justice for the terrible harm done”.

The attack on Shajareh Tayyebeh school consisted of two missile strikes in quick succession that killed at least 168 people, including about 110 children, Iranian officials have said.

US media have reported that American military investigators believe its own forces were likely responsible for hitting the school unintentionally.

US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth previously said the matter was being investigated.

The strike, if a US role was to be confirmed, would amount to one of its worst single cases of civilian casualties in decades of US conflicts in the Middle East.

“The images of bombed-out classrooms and grieving parents showed clearly who pays the highest price for war: civilians with no power in the decisions that led to conflict,” Türk said.

He said that “the onus is on those who carried out the attack to investigate it promptly, impartially, transparently and thoroughly”.

“Senior US officials have said the strike is under investigation,” he said, calling “for that process to be concluded as soon as possible, and for its findings to be made public”.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said in a video address to the UN meeting in Geneva that the bombing was a “deliberate and intentional” attack by the US. “This atrocity cannot be justified, cannot be concealed, and must not be met with silence and indifference,” he said.

Earlier this month, Democrats in the US Senate wrote to US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth demanding answers about the strike.

The letter, from nearly every Senate Democrat, asked a series of detailed questions about the strike in Minab – starting with whether the US carried it out.