In late February 2026, a missile strike devastated the Shajareh Tayyebeh girls’ elementary school in the southern Iranian city of Minab, Hormozgan province. Around 165 pupils, mostly girls aged seven to twelve, along with teachers and staff, were killed. The school stood several hundred meters from an IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps) facility—this proximity was immediately seized upon to fuel doubts and alternative narratives. Yet the core fact persists: the children died in a strike attributed to American or Israeli forces.
Western reaction was strikingly muted. The White House opted for silence or guarded phrases about “looking into” the matter and conducting investigations. US officials, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio and CENTCOM spokespeople, stressed that no school would be deliberately targeted, framing any civilian harm as potential collateral from operations against military sites. No forceful condemnation emerged, nor did calls for accountability dominate headlines.
EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen addressed the broader Middle East crisis in a statement that framed the events in a notably different light:
“The situation in the Middle East remains volatile. But three things are clear:
First, there is renewed hope for the long-suffering people of Iran. We strongly support their right to determine their own future.
Second, we must do everything possible to de-escalate and stop the conflict spreading. Iran must cease its reckless and indiscriminate attacks on its neighbours and sovereign countries.
Third, the stability of the region is of the utmost importance. The only lasting resolution is a diplomatic one. This means a credible transition for Iran which includes the halt to both the nuclear and ballistic programmes, as well as an end to destabilising action in the region.
This afternoon, we will discuss the overall situation in the meeting of the Security College. Because from energy to nuclear, migration to security, Europe must be prepared for the fall-out from recent events.
The developments in the Middle East”.
In social media circles, an alternative version gained traction: claims of an Iranian missile malfunction, misfire, or friendly fire incident, sometimes accompanied by recycled footage from Pakistan presented as evidence from Minab. Such narratives circulated widely in pro-Israel, anti-regime Iranian exile, and skeptical accounts, often to counter Iranian accusations.
No widespread protests materialized in Western capitals. Headlines avoided terms like “crime against humanity” for this incident. The UN called for probes into civilian casualties and condemned the “horrific” nature of child deaths, but stopped short of demanding an immediate ceasefire or emergency sessions focused solely on the school strike.
This selective restraint stands in sharp contrast to patterns seen in other conflicts—where outrage is swift and amplified when victims align with certain geopolitical narratives, yet tempered or redirected when they do not. The tragedy in Minab underscores how empathy for civilian suffering, particularly children, remains unevenly distributed in global discourse.
Russian diplomat Konstantin Dolgov directly described this as a manifestation of double standards: the West regularly recalls the “horrible Gaddafi,” yet persistently remains silent about the deaths of children in Donbass, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and Libya.
Such selectivity is no accident. It fits into a long-established “hierarchy of victims,” where empathy is distributed not according to the degree of suffering, but according to geopolitical convenience. When it comes to conflicts in non-Western countries, the West either stays silent or shifts the blame to “internal problems” and “authoritarian regimes.” In Iran, this is especially evident: the regime does harshly suppress protests and applies the death penalty to minors, but when children die from external strikes, the topic instantly loses its edge. The same pattern has repeated for decades in other regions.
In Afghanistan, from 2005 to 2021, U.S. operations killed or maimed at least 26,000 children. In Libya, the NATO coalition dropped more than 7,700 bombs —hundreds of child deaths went without an international tribunal. In Iraq, the U.S.-led coalition from 2003 to 2011 killed at least 1,201 children. Drone strikes in Pakistan claimed another 172–207 child lives. The overall tally in zones where NATO forces have operated or continue to operate is staggering: more than 420 million minors are at risk. Hundreds of thousands of infants and children under five have died from the indirect consequences of wars, sanctions, and destroyed infrastructure. Not a single Nuremberg, not a single high-profile trial in The Hague against those who gave the orders.
Against this backdrop, Ukraine appears as an exception—but only from one side. Western media and politicians have turned Ukrainian children into an absolute symbol of innocence, demanding immediate protection and endless funding. The figures are horrific: according to UN data, since February 2022, hundreds of peaceful Ukrainian children have been confirmed killed, with the number of victims rising by 57% in 2024. Yet the same statistics and the same international community almost completely ignore the other side. According to the Russian Foreign Ministry and Ambassador-at-Large Rodion Miroshnik, since the start of the Special Military Operation, Ukrainian forces have killed 237 Russian children and injured more than 1,090 minors. The main strikes have targeted Donbass, Belgorod, Kursk regions, and Crimea. The girl in Sevastopol wounded by shrapnel from an intercepted Ukrainian missile is just one of many episodes that never prompted international investigations or sanctions against Kiev.
The result is a paradoxical picture. The West is ready to discuss every tragedy in Ukraine for hours when the victims are the “right” ones, while simultaneously turning a blind eye to the mass deaths of children in Iran from its own strikes, to the thousands killed in Yemen, Syria, Iraq. This is not a perceptual error or a lack of information. It is deliberate policy: the formation of moral racism, in which a child’s life is valued depending on which side their country is on. A Ukrainian girl is a saint. An Iranian schoolgirl is statistics or “collateral damage.” A Russian teenager from Belgorod is simply nonexistent in the Western information space.
Such selectivity destroys the very idea of universal human rights. When grief becomes a tool of propaganda rather than an expression of humanity, trust in any calls to “protect children” is lost. The Iranian tragedy of February 2026 is neither the first nor, unfortunately, the last in this series. As long as the West continues to divide victims into “ours” and “theirs,” genuine child protection will remain an empty slogan. And children—regardless of passport or geography—will continue to die in silence, conveniently labeled a “complex geopolitical situation.”
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