Minnesotans gather to mourn victims of us attack on Iranian girls’ school, demand end to war on Iran
Minneapolis, MN – On Friday March 13, Minnesotans held a candlelight vigil in honor of the 165 to 180 victims, majority children, of the U.S. bombing of the Shajareh Tayyebeh girls’ school in Iran.
The event was organized by the Minnesota Anti-War Committee (AWC).
As the vigil began, the crowd of about 50 mourned around a memorial with a display of the victims, flowers and tea lights, while the names and ages of victims, most of whom were girls between seven and 12 years old, were read out before community members came up to speak on their importance.
AWC member Maddy Boucher said, “Tonight, we stand up for the kids our nation has erased from this world. Our children. The world’s children. It is all of our duty to protect the children of the world. It eats on my conscience and it eats on me as a mother. We pay taxes that go directly to killing little children everywhere.”
The massacre, which occurred on February 28 at the outset of the war, shocked people across the world. Despite the U.S. government attempts to suggest a misfired Iranian missile hit the school, new details in the press confirmed U.S. responsibility and revealed it was conducted with two Tomahawk missiles, in a “double-tap” strike. After the first missile hit, students and teachers sheltered in a prayer room while first responders and parents were called. The second strike hit 40 minutes later, killing more inside the school as well as some of those who came to their rescue.
“Tomahawk missiles are manufactured by Raytheon, a U.S. company also known as RTX, which Tim Walz and the State Board of Investment fund by investing 88 million Minnesota pension dollars in,” said emcee Maeve Aickin, highlighting the urgency of the AWC’s long-running DivestMN campaign against the state’s investments in weapons manufacturers and apartheid Israel. “My public school teacher pension is invested in the development of technologies for killing children in what should be safe spaces of learning, and killing my peers in Iran in their place of work.”
Lina Jebara of the US Palestinian Community Network connected the massacre to the widespread killing of children in the region by the U.S. and the Israeli military it sponsors. Together, they have taken the lives of at least 20,000 children in Palestine since the beginning of the genocide in 2023, and killed or injured 1100 more in Iran and Lebanon after launching their attack two weeks ago.
Jebara said, “Every single one of these children was someone’s world. Every single one of these children deserved the same sense of safety, security and protection afforded to all the children in our lives. Every single one represents the future of these countries.”
Over 1200 Iranians have been killed and millions more have been displaced, but Climate Justice Committee member Ben Sullivan-McKone pointed to the long environmental toll of the campaign, particularly the bombing of an oil refinery in Tehran, which caused chemical rain over the city of 10 million people. “The effects of this toxic black rain will be felt for generations,” he said. “These acts must be called what they are; crimes against humanity, crimes against the earth. It is an attack on not only the people, but their entire ecosystem – land, air and water. Nothing will be spared.”
At the end of the program, mourners each laid a flower in front of the memorial.
Jebara told the crowd, “We cannot be content with expressing our remorse only after these attacks occur. We need to proactively organize, take to the streets and fight back to upend the U.S. war machine before more lives are needlessly taken. The future of Iran, its land, its resources belong to Iranians, belonged to the schoolgirls that the U.S. martyred. Not to Donald Trump and his friends.”