The United States has asked Iran to account for the perpetrators of the wave of gas poisonings in women’s schools in the country, given new cases with hundreds of young people affected. “We expect the Iranian authorities to fully investigate these reported poisonings and do everything in your power to stop them and hold the perpetrators to account,” US State Department spokesman Ned Price said at a press conference.

Hundreds of students have already been hospitalized after experiencing eye irritation, dizziness and headaches by poisoning in eight schools and institutes in the city of Ardebil, three schools in Tehran, one in Parand and another in Kermanshah, as reported by the reformist daily Shargh.

“The students smelled a gas similar to that of other schools that have suffered poisoning“, the president of the Ardebil University of Medical Sciences, Ali Mohammadian Erdi, assured Shargh. As in previous cases, they claimed to have perceived a smell between a mixture of rotten orange and cleaning products.

These new cases are added to the at least 30 gas poisonings registered in female educational centers since November in the Persian country.

Price called these cases “disturbing” and “concerning” and defended that education is a universal right that the girls of Iran should have, since it is something “essential to advance the economic security of women and make gender equality a reality.”

Iran’s President, Ebrahim Raisí, instructed the Interior Minister, Ahmad Vahidí, and the Ministry of Health to investigate “quickly” the causes of the poisonings.

Many parents of the affected students protested at the school gates and asked for explanations, even shouting “Death to the government that murders children”. Meanwhile, the security forces continue to find no clues and doubt whether they are deliberate attacks or mere accidents.

“Great efforts are being made to identify the origin of the student poisonings,” the Persian country’s police chief, Ahmad Reza Radan, told Iranian media. “No one has been arrested so far and we prefer do not judge if it is a deliberate matter“, he added. The position of the police chief clashes with that of other senior officials in the country, such as the Deputy Minister of Education, Younes Panahi, who stated that these are “intentional attacks” to close girls’ schools.

The first case of poisoning was recorded at the end of November in the holy city of Qom, town that has suffered the highest number of casesand in recent weeks they have multiplied in several cities in the country.

The spate of poisonings in girls’ schools comes at a time of heightened tension in Iran, which has been shaken in recent months by protests over the death of the young woman Mahsa Amini, after being arrested for not wearing the Islamic headscarf properly.

These protests have had a strong feminist component, with many Iranians removing their headscarves and even burning them. The protests, however, have lost steam. in a notable way after the executions of four demonstrators and in recent weeks there have hardly been any mobilizations on the streets of Iran.