The school day had begun as usual, Amaineh says.
Because it was the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, the children gathered inside the prayer hall to recite the Quran, she recalls, before she began teaching her pupils a new letter of the Persian alphabet.
But, as the first attacks of the war unfolded across Iran, she says the headteacher announced the school would be closing, and teachers began contacting parents, urging them to collect their children.
Only five of Amaineh’s 15 first-grade pupils were left in her classroom on the upper floor, she says, when she first heard an explosion not far from the school. She says she was in the corridor and rushed back for the children.
“Just as I went to leave, a missile struck the school,” says Amaineh. “Something hit my head and my students’ heads – we were all sent flying.”
Then, she says, thick black smoke filled the classroom: “I couldn’t even see the pupils I was holding in my arms. We couldn’t breathe.”
She says she remembers hearing another explosion, as well as the sounds of screaming, children crying and then the school itself collapsing – “destroyed all at once”.
“Blood was pouring from me and the students,” she adds.
