Heartbreaking Death of a Seven-Year-Old Boy in Iran

On December 1, Hamshahri Online website reported that the corpse of seven-year-old Seyed Ali-Asghar Mousavizadeh was found on the coast of Dayyer port. Somewhile ago, Ali-Asghar’s 11-year-old brother Mohammad had also committed suicide due to a lack of proper equipment such as tablets and smartphones for participating in remote education classes.

“Yesterday evening, local people verbally acknowledged us about drowning a seven-year-old child in the fishing pier of Dayyer port in Bushehr province. Rescuers of Dayyer Marine Rescue Base were immediately dispatched to the place. They pulled out the corpse of a drowned child from the water and delivered it to the 115-emergency,” ILNA news agency reported.

One of the Dayyer emergency staff said, “We arrived at the place after 30 minutes from the event.” Evidence and eyewitnesses declared that the late child is the little brother of Seyed Mohammad Mousavizadeh. Mohammad had already committed suicide because of the lack of a tablet, according to social media.

Following the coronavirus outbreak in Iran, authorities deal with the crisis with negligence. In April, despite the country has not reached an acceptable point in containing the virus, officials lifted restrictions and pre-emptive measures, leading to the second wave of the deadly virus. The rulers practically coerced citizens to opt between dying of starvation or the disease.

Furthermore, on September 5, Iranian officials reopened the schools across the country. The Education Minister Mohsen Haji-Mirzaei claimed his department had launched an education app to hold online-classes and resume curriculum. However, the government did not consider the condition of over 60 million citizens—almost 80 percent of Iran’s population—who are living below the poverty line.

In this respect, many students in poor districts, outlying regions, and slums met severe problems, dropping out of schools. Unfortunately, the moral pressure pushed several students to commit suicide in different cities for the lack of a tablet or smartphone.

Poverty Kills Iranian Children

A 10-year-old child in Ilam, western Iran, hanged himself and died due to his family’s poverty. 

In Parsabad Moghan in Ardabil province, a 16-year-old boy committed suicide with a hunting rifle and died.

In a village in Urmia, a 13-year-old girl Parastoo Jalili Azar committed suicide due to the family’s financial poverty, lack of a smartphone, and inability to attend online classes.

Also, Morteza, 10; Mobina, 11; Rojan, 14; Asal, 16; Zahra, 16; an unidentified 17-year-old girl all committed suicide due to their families’ economic difficulties. 

Of course, the Health Ministry and other relevant institutions never announce the actual number of suicides and deaths resulting from poverty, especially the suicide of children and adolescents.

“Statistics will not be announced unless made public. Of course, after a while, the noises fall asleep again. The government does not provide statistics, and many families do not report the cause of their child’s death as a suicide,” Bartarinha website quoted an expert Mustafa Eghlima as saying on October 22.

“In such a way that some of those sitting on the path of management either own large capital or use it in the influence of the owner of capital, policies, and decisions are naturally laid out in such a way that the distribution of national capital and revenues is diverted from its fair form and is directed to the pursuit of specific and limited group interests… And what reaches the other strata becomes less and less to the point that some people reach an insignificant share, equal to zero,” Tasnim news agency affiliated to the Revolutionary Guards’ Quds Force (IRGC-QF) wrote in October.