Did you know that Truthout is a nonprofit and independently funded by readers like you? If you value what we do, please support our work with a donation.

Parents of children killed in the US bombing of an elementary school in southern Iran released a letter on Sunday applauding Pope Leo XIV for speaking out against war and urging him to “continue to be the voice of the voiceless children.”

“We write this letter to you with trembling hands and a heart full of pain, from amidst the ashes and ruins of the schools of the city of Minab,” reads the letter, first reported by Iran’s PressTV. “We are the fathers and mothers of 168 children who, these days, instead of embracing the warm bodies of our children, press their burned bags and bloody notebooks to our chests; innocent children whose only crime was smiling in the classroom, but this crime, through the instigation and support of illogical warmongers, crashed down upon the heads of our innocent children.”

More than 100 children were killed in the February 28 strike on Shajarah Tayyebeh elementary school in Minab, along with teachers and parents. Preliminary findings from the Pentagon indicate that the US was responsible for the strike, though the Trump administration has not formally admitted fault or apologized for the deadly attack, which came on the first day of the illegal US-Israeli war on Iran. Human rights groups have said the bombing should be investigated as a war........

© Truthout