Among the children massacred by a US missile attack on Shajareh Tayyebeh elementary school in Minab, southern Iran, was a 7-year-old boy named Makan Nasiri.

The US Tomahawk missiles left nothing of his small, fragile body. His parents are left to wait for a son who will never return, with only a wrinkled blue sweater and a pair of cream-colored sneakers to hold; a devastating testament to the reality of a war of aggression – a reality known only to those who must bear its cost.

The deadly US strike on Shajareh Tayyebeh elementary school on the first day of the imposed war, February 28, is known as the most heinous massacre of innocent children in the world, killing at least 168 school children, mainly girls aged between 7 and 12. Large parts of the school building were destroyed while classes were underway.

Subsequent to the tragic event, most children’s bodies, with some being torn into pieces, were recovered and buried, all except for that of Makan.

Just a single sneaker In an empty grave

His crushed blood-stained blue sweater, and a single cream-colored sneakers are the things found over the past forty-six days; no other single thing was remained of him. All his belongings are placed within a small glass box in a mosque in his neighborhood.

Among the hundreds of graves of the Minab elementary school’s victims, there lies an empty grave, created in honor of Makan, who was declared missing as his body was not found after a 46-day search under the school’s rubble.

It was 11:16 in the morning. Asieh Rahinejad, Makan’s mom, was doing household chores, when the phone rang. Makan’s teacher, Ms. Mandana Salari, was on the phone.

She asked Asieh to pick Makan up from school immediately, as the enemies attacked the school.

Asieh, totally unaware of the earlier attack in Tehran on the same day, called the school bus driver.

The man who happened to be near the school promised to go there at once.

She was still holding the phone when she heard a terrible explosion.

The school was bombed severely. Asieh, along with her husband, who was home on that day, rushed to school.

School reduced to rubble

Makan’s parents got off the car and ran towards the school. The bombs had already levelled the school buildings. There was total chaos.

There were people everywhere. Makan’s mom was wondering what to do, and where to go to look for his son.

“As we arrived at school, many were under the rubble, but no single child stayed alive. We stayed there from 11.30 a.m. till 2.30 a.m. The lifeless bodies were pulled out of rubble. Few were suffocated to death.

Most were dismembered. In the first 38 days, we went to forensic medicine department every day to identify the martyred students, but we couldn’t find Makan.

We took DNA test to help find the body of our son. There were only his books and notebooks. No piece of his body, no bag, and not even his shoes were found. On the 38th day, my brother found a single sneaker that belonged to my dear son.”

On February 28, the day that the school was targeted, Hamzeh Rahinejad, Makan’s uncle, went to school. The air was filled with smoke, dust, and the smell of burning bodies.

“Since the very beginning of the incident till 5 a.m., along with many others who were helping to locate the lost loved children, I was searching to find something from Makan.

The worst atrocities of war

As we removed pieces of rocks, we could only find small pieces of torn hands, legs, and heads of the innocent kids. It was like a nightmare, the worst atrocities of the war.

I cannot put it in words. It was even more saddening than the martyrdom of Imam Hussein (AS) and his loyal companions in the battle of Karbala. I think it was much worse.

From the second day into school bombardment, we formed a 20-member team of uncles and their children to look for Makan. We even searched the jungle in the vicinity of the school.

I carried a gauze bandage and a plastic bag with me, and take any piece of flesh or finger found under the rubble.

Makan, like his other family members, had a birthmark on his body, something like a mole that would get more colored in winter. Now, I was searching for such a thing, but he seemed to be vanished.

Till the 38th day of our search, we were hopeful that we could find him alive.

That day, I went back to the scene. About a 100 meter away from the destroyed buildings, there among the trees of a garden, I found some bags and shoes, put them all inside a box and took it to my sister’s house.

The house was full of people. I asked Asieh if any of those things belonged to Makan. The sight of a cream sneaker made her faint. It was like a doomsday scenario, the major calamity of the brutally targeted elementary school.”

In reaction to Makan’s tragic martyrdom, government spokesperson, Fatemeh Mohajerani, wrote on her X account that “His name was Makan. He was 7. All that remains is a blood-stained sweater and a single shoe. The strike on a school in Minab is not a mistake—it is a clear violation of human rights and children’s rights. No justification can restore a child’s life. Silence is complicit.”

Take revenge for our children

Now, Makan has a symbolic grave in Minab’s martyred graveyard, a memorial in Mahdieh mosque in his family’s neighborhood, and a memorial in Khomeinishahr, his father’s birth place, where, according to Makan’s uncle, a street is going to be named after him.

Asieh goes to the mosque, where Makan’s mementos are put into a glass box. She also visits his empty grave from time to time and cries over his missing beloved son.

Addressing the first memorial ceremony of Minab’s martyred students in Isfahan province, Asieh said: “I was terrified by the idea of having to place Makan in the grave, I couldn’t stand that. I prayed to God for help, and it may explain why we couldn’t find him.”

Speaking on behalf of parents of the 168 martyred students, she just said one sentence, “We want them to take revenge for our children’s massacre.”

Adapted from Tehran Times