It was around 11:16… I was standing in the schoolyard with the kindergarten children from my class when the first missile hit the school stairs.
Fouzieh Zakeri, Makan’s kindergarten teacher from the previous year, remembers those seconds with painful clarity: the terrible impact, being thrown against the wall, the smoke, the dust, and the sound of children crying.
She says that less than a minute later, the enemy fired a second missile at the building. Although she herself was wounded, she gathered the children who were in the schoolyard into her arms and carried them out of the school as far as her strength allowed.
The wounds in her leg and back still remain from that day. “My right leg was broken and torn in several places, and my back was injured,” she says. “But all I could think about was that these children had to survive.”
She says eight of her former students were martyred in this crime. One of them was Makan Nasiri, who had become a first-grade student. His body has still not been found, and his name remains among the missing.
“Makan was a very playful and energetic boy,” she says. “If he was absent even for one day, his absence could be felt in the classroom. I would call his mother and ask, ‘Why isn’t Makan here? The class is silent without him.’”
One of her sweetest memories of him goes back to Teacher’s Day. “It was May 2, 2025. Makan brought me flowers. At the last bell, he said, ‘Teacher, I want to take a keepsake photo with you and these flowers.’ That photo is still before my eyes.”
She pauses, and her eyes fall.
It is as if Makan’s laughter is still echoing in her classroom.