Hundreds of young girls have been poisoned on Wednesday as in the past few weeks in dozens of schools across the country, in an apparent effort to stop them from going to school, according to several news reports and Iranian officials.
The BBC reported about 700 girls have been affected by toxic gas since November, many of whom have been hospitalized, but none have died. The girls impacted have exhibited symptoms, including nausea and fatigue, the network added.
Schoolgirls have been on the forefront of protests that have rocked the country following the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Jina Amini in morality police custody in September after the young Kurdish-Iranian woman was arrested for allegedly not wearing her hijab properly.
The first cases of poisoning were reported in November in the religious city of Qom, which is home to Shiite Muslim clerics and many religious schools.
Students at Qom’s Noor Yazdanshahr Conservatory fell ill both in November and December, according to The Associated Press, but authorities at first failed to recognize a connection between those incidents.
More cases were later reported in other cities, including in the country’s capital Tehran, Kermanshah, Ardebil and in Borujerd, suggesting the incidents weren’t isolated.
Iranian authorities on Tuesday said they have made no arrest linked to the incident.
