‘What was their crime?’: The BBC visited an Iranian school in Minab

The school day has started as usual, says Amaneh.

It was the Islamic month of Ramadan, so the children gathered in the prayer hall to recite the Quran, she recalls, before teaching her students new Persian letters.

But as the war’s first attacks erupted across Iran, the headmaster announced school closures and teachers began meeting with parents to gather their children.

Amaneh said only five of her 15 first-grade students were in her classroom on the top floor when she heard an explosion not far from the school. She says she was in the hallway and rushed back to the kids.

“Just as I was about to leave, a missile hit the school,” says Amaneh. “Something hit my head and the heads of my students – we were all sent flying.”

Then, she says, thick black smoke filled the room: “I couldn’t even see the students I was holding in my arms, we couldn’t breathe.”

She recalled another explosion, as well as the sound of screams, children crying and the school itself collapsing – “it was all destroyed at once,” she said.

“It was bleeding from me and the students,” she added.