Alireza Shahrjoo was seven years old and a first-grade student.
This part is written from an interview with his mother. She introduces herself as Shahrjoo, the mother of seven-year-old Alireza. Alireza was the third child in a family of five. His mother was a housekeeper, and his father was a house painter.
“When their teacher called,” she says, “she said the situation was bad, that there was a war, and that we should come and take Alireza home. I quickly called his father, and he left immediately. He reached the Shir Khargah roundabout when the first bomb struck. He quickly got on a motorcycle and went to the front of the school. Then the second bomb struck, and my husband was thrown away in front of the school.
I called him and asked, ‘What happened? Did you go for the child?’ He was only screaming. He kept saying, ‘They hit the school. The child is under the rubble.’
I ran toward the school with my older son. I fell ten times, twenty times, before I reached it. When I arrived, I saw that no school existed anymore.
It took three days to find my child. We went to the hospital; he was not there. We went to the Tiab mortuary. We checked the first room; he was not there. When I saw the second room, it was the desert of Karbala. I told myself: you must endure; you must find your child.
We opened the body covers one by one and looked. Then my eyes fell on a cover. I said, ‘This is my child.’”
It was as if she had sensed him by scent.
“My sister asked me, ‘How did you know?’ I said, ‘I knew this was my child.’ My child was completely burned. Only a little of his eyebrow and mouth had not burned. I knew he was my child by his smell.
The doctor was uncertain. We showed him the child’s photo. He washed his face with a little cotton, and then it became clear that it was him. On the first day he went to school, he had gone in sports clothes. A little of the elastic from his trousers was still left on his leg.
In that moment, my heart became a little calmer. In those three days, I had neither sleep nor food. I was so restless. Whenever someone knocked on the door, I would run and say, ‘It is my child. He has come back.’ When I saw him there, I became calm.”
Alireza loved football very much. He was a fan of Esteghlal F.C. . Every day, he and his sixth-grade brother would go to the football field and play together. He wanted to become a pilot when he grew up.
But Alireza never grew up.
“The Tuesday before the attack, he drew a picture at school and brought it to show me. It was a picture of Mom, Dad, and his two brothers. I asked, ‘Why aren’t you in the picture?’ He said, ‘I am not here. I am at school.’
Even now, when I think of that drawing, I become sad. His drawing notebook was in his school bag, and his bag was destroyed. They gave us nothing from Alireza. Only two books remained, and those were left at the Education Department.”
At the moment of the attack, Alireza was in the classroom, beside his teacher. Six first-grade students were martyred in that classroom together with their teacher.