Dawn deep in the south of Iran.
We’re reaching the end of a 4-day journey.
Heading for a place now infamous in the story of this war.
As we enter the town of Minab, there are reminders everywhere of its terrible tragedy.
We’ve come to the primary school that was hit on the first day of the conflict by precisiong guided American missiles.
We’re the first journalists from outside of Iran to film here since the attack.
There are still so many unanswered questions about what happened here.
We meet brothers Fasil and Resza who rushed to help after the missiles came in.
We were faced with an unbelievably horrifying scene.
There were pieces of bodies everywhere.
Hands, heads, a child’s torso without limbs, all burned.
All of this area was full of body parts.
We were terrified and in shock.
We were wondering if we were in a nightmare or awake and couldn’t believe what we were seeing.
The missiles struck in the middle of the morning when the school was full of children causing enormous loss of life.
Staff at the school had already realized that Iran was under attack that morning and called parents to take their children home.
Most of them didn’t get here in time.
Survivors say that most of the children, the girls on the upper floor of the school were moved to that end of the building to a prayer room for their safety.
When the missiles struck, they killed many children and teachers on impact, but they also tragically collapsed completely that end of the school, trapping and killing many more.
11-year-old Paris, was on the school’s upper floor when the missiles landed.
She somehow survived, but was badly injured.
Her little brother, 9-year-old Aliasa, was killed.
Yes.
She showed us his toys in his backpack found in the rubble and told us how she raced to help him that morning before a second explosion tore them apart.
Paris was found under rubble on the floor below.
She was severely burned and spent weeks in hospital recovering.
Joad, their father, told us how proud he’d been of his son.
The loss of Aliasa, he says, is impossible to take in.
Minab has had to extend the town’s cemetery to bury all the dead.
They come here every night to hold vigil for their children.
This is actually quite overwhelming.
Child after child, grave after grave.
And almost three months on, the families still coming every evening to spend hours by their children’s graveside and talking to some of them of course is deeply moving.
Muhammad Taha should have been celebrating his 10th birthday this night.
Instead, his mother Hadija and family are by his grave mourning him.
You know that.
[laughter] [crying] They made a cake for Muhammad.
Happy birthday, they sang.
May you live for 100 years.
If there is an explanation for this atrocity, we haven’t heard it yet.
The evidence points to America.
Iranians say these are pieces of US-made Tomahawk cruise missiles collected at the site.
And we know America attacked several other places nearby that day.
Whatever other targets there were in the area, the point to stress is this was a primary school.
It had been for more than a decade and was clearly marked on maps.
And yet it was struck, it seems, right in the center of the building by missiles that are accurate within a few meters.
It was either deliberately targeted, which would be a war crime, or it was misidentified, potentially equally a breach of the rules of war.
Now, after similar incidents in Iraq and Afghanistan, America has admitted responsibility within a few days or at the most a few weeks.
All it said for almost 3 months now is this is being investigated.
They are stalked here by the spectre of war returning.
It’s not at all clear to what extent this appalling tragedy is being investigated and what’s been learned to make sure nothing like this can happen again if hostilities resume.
Dominic Waghorn, Sky News Minab.
