Roozbeh Farahanipour

I was finishing my report to the General Assembly, reflecting on the past seven months in Iran, when news came of renewed US strikes on the southern coast. Iran’s Minister of Health reports that 18 people were killed and 108 others were injured in this week’s night’s attacks. The strikes on 1 September evening hit Kuhestak, a small fishing town on the Strait of Hormuz. A communications tower and a pier at the port were struck, as was a house where a family was celebrating a wedding. Among the dead reported are two women and two children, aged 4 and 16. Dozens of wedding guests were wounded. Kuhestak is a Baloch town in Hormozgan, some 30 km from Minab, where US strikes on the Shajareh Tayyebeh primary school on 28 February killed at least 168 schoolchildren, along with teachers, staff and parents. The Baloch are among the most marginalised communities in Iran, and the July strikes on the south already hit Baloch areas, killing fishermen and residents of informal settlements. This week’s strikes add to that harm. Reflecting on this year, what stands out is the scale of the violence and the lives lost, with the people of Iran caught between external aggression and internal repression -- both must end, but first the war must end.