Reyhaneh and Hananeh Mahdikhah both studied at Shajareh Tayyebeh School. Hananeh was a first-grade student and was martyred in the attack.
Her sister Reyhaneh survived, and she tells us about the day Hananeh was taken.
“We were in class that day when they told us the school was closing because the management had an urgent meeting, and that we had to wait for our parents to come and take us home. We were wondering what the meeting was about when suddenly there was the sound of an explosion.
All the children screamed and ran out of the classroom. Our teacher was not in the class; she had gone to the office to call the parents. Then we went into the hallway in front of our classroom, where there was a large board belonging to the office. We fell there, and that large board fell on top of us. There was also a fire beside us.
In fact, the first attack had hit the office, exactly the couch where our teacher had been sitting. Our teacher’s body was completely destroyed. The office was completely gone.
We girls were on the first floor. I felt dizzy and closed my eyes. At that same moment, I heard the sound of another explosion in my ears. In those moments, I was worried about my sister Hananeh. I kept saying, ‘God, help me.’ I was crying so much, and all I could think about was my sister.
We were very close to the office. Only a narrow hallway separated us from it. The office had been completely destroyed, and the children had fallen on top of each other. The second-grade children were beside us too, and we had all fallen together. Glass had fallen over our heads. A piece of glass had gone into one child’s eye. Everyone was wounded in some way. Some faces were completely covered in blood. One child’s whole body was burned.
The children saw that one part was open, and they tried to get out of there. They climbed over the rubble. The sixth-grade classroom was next to the office. The sixth-grade teacher had fallen down, but from there she took the children’s hands and helped them go down and reach the ground.
I kept crying and calling my sister’s name.
I went through the corridor that connected to the boys’ yard. There I saw that a huge amount of rubble had fallen over the boys’ school. Everything from the second floor of the girls’ school had collapsed onto the boys’ section.
My appearance had changed so much that I remember one of the mothers of the first-grade children saw me from her car, screamed, and ran away. Somehow, with great difficulty, I reached the gate of the yard. Parents had arrived and were crying and wailing.
Usually, our aunt would come to take us home from school, because my cousin also studied at that school. He was martyred that day, too. A Basiji man came and said, ‘Come with me.’ I said, ‘I will not come. I will not go anywhere until I find my sister.’
While I was standing there, I saw my aunt. My face had changed so much that she did not recognize me. I told her several times, ‘I am Reyhaneh,’ until she came to herself and recognized me. She asked me about Mohammad and Hananeh. I said I did not know.
My aunt pointed to a man and said, ‘Go with him, so I can find Mohammad, Hananeh, and Zeinab.’
They took me to the hospital and asked me for my parents’ phone number. At that moment, no matter how much I tried to remember, I could not. They asked me what my father’s job was, and I said he worked in hospital security.
When we reached the hospital, it was very crowded. A man beside me was completely burned. They were trying to bring him back to life with electric shocks.
They put me in a wheelchair. I was still crying and asking for my sister. My father’s colleague at the hospital called him. When I saw my father, I asked, ‘Did you find Hananeh?’ He did not answer.”
At this point, Reyhaneh begins to cry.
“My father burst into tears, and that was when I understood that Hananeh had been martyred.
At the same time, U.S. were still striking Minab and other cities with missiles, and the wounded were still being brought to the hospital. Everyone was running from one side to another. The situation was so bad that they told us there were people more severely wounded than us, and we went home.
When we reached home, I saw everyone gathered around my mother. I asked my mother, ‘Where is Hananeh?’ My mother said, ‘Hananeh is in a very good place.’
I understood that she had been martyred, and I only cried. But after a short time, I told myself that God must have loved my sister very much, because He took her to Himself on the very first day of the war.”
Hananeh’s body was found almost intact. It appears that the pressure of the explosion caused her small heart to stop.
Zahra Jabbari, Reyhaneh and Hananeh’s mother, says:
“That morning, everything was normal. I combed Hananeh’s hair, zipped Reyhaneh’s school bag, and saw them off. Then, at 10:58, Hananeh’s teacher called and said we had to come and take the children.
It was an ordinary sentence. There was no other warning. And less than half an hour later, I had lost my daughter.”
She describes the hardest part as the time when Hananeh could not be found:
“I reached the school. Among smoke and rubble, parents were shouting the names of their children. Wounded children were screaming for their mothers and fathers. Some people were carrying wounded children. Those who were found were taken into arms. But my Hananeh was nowhere.
One of the parents said she had seen Hananeh in the schoolyard and that maybe someone had taken the child to a safe place. I hoped it was true. But that hope was short-lived. The two children they had seen had both been martyred, and neither of them was Hananeh.
The day after the incident, Hananeh’s name was registered among the martyrs in a mortuary in Minab.”
Her mother remembers the moment she saw her daughter’s body:
“She was not dusty. She was not burned. Even her clothes were not like the children who had been trapped under the rubble. She only had one small mark, the size of a lentil, on her cheek. I think the blast wave tore her heart. It was as if her heart had simply stopped.”
In the story of Hananeh and Reyhaneh, we once again see courage and sacrifice. We see people who helped one another despite the danger of another missile strike. And above all, we see a teacher who did not run during the bombardment but stayed and helped the children one by one.
Yes, once again it was proven: Minab is a piece of heaven left behind on earth.