Iran’s Foreign Ministry said on Thursday that a “barbaric” US attack near a cancer hospital in the southwestern Iranian city of Ahvaz forced the evacuation of the medical facility.
“Shahid Baqaei Hospital, a children’s cancer treatment center in Ahvaz, was evacuated last night after the US attacked a nearby location,” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei wrote on X.
“This barbaric attack, reminiscent of Israel’s atrocities against healthcare facilities, caused severe suffering and anxiety upon the hospitalized children, and forced the emergency evacuation of 211 patients undergoing chemotherapy,” he added.
Baghaei said that the attack “constitutes a cowardly war crime against the most innocent of human beings — children who are bravely fighting for their lives.”
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi also released a statement on Thursday accusing the US of committing war crimes against Iran, in which he urged Gulf countries to stop allowing the US to launch attacks from their territory, as Iran has continued launching retaliatory attacks on US bases across the region.
Araghchi wrote on Telegram that Tehran was calling on regional countries to “prevent the continuation and spread of the fire of war in the region by immediately preventing the aggressors from using their land, sea, and air facilities and territory to attack Iran, and not to allow the sinister American-Zionist conspiracy to create hostility and suspicion between the countries of the region to be realized.”
US strikes against Iran on Thursday hit near the capital city of Tehran for the first time during this round of the war, marking an escalation of US attacks. The US has also begun reinforcing the blockade against Iran, and bombed a ship on Wednesday that it said was attempting to reach Kharg Island. Another US attack on Wednesday struck an Iranian army barracks, killing at least seven soldiers.
