Parents of Iranian Boy Killed by Airstrike Visit Hiroshima

Hiroshima, Aug. 5 (Jiji Press)–The parents of an Iranian boy killed by an airstrike, now on a visit to Hiroshima, are set to attend Thursday’s annual ceremony to honor the victims of the Aug. 6, 1945, U.S. atomic bombing of the western Japan city. On Tuesday, they attended a film festival related to Iran. Their happy time will never return, the couple said, expressing their wish that such a tragedy will not happen to anybody else. Their 7-year-old son, Makan Nasiri, a first grader at an elementary school in Minab, southern Iran, was killed by an air raid on the school conducted possibly by the U.S. military in February. The attack killed a total of about 170 people. The boy’s parents shed tears when a video of fighting was shown at the beginning of the film festival. His 41-year-old mother, Asiyeh Rahinezhadmahmoodi, said that her son never returned home after she sent the boy, in a blue sweater, off to school. The son’s sweater and shoes were found, but his body was not discovered, the mother said. She expressed her determination to share her family’s story, saying that other communities in Iran must not suffer the same fate. Moct, a nonprofit organization in Hiroshima, invited 15 people from Iran, including the boy’s parents, to the city this time. Since 2004, the NPO has been inviting Iranian victims of chemical weapon used in the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s to attend the city’s Aug. 6 peace ceremony. Moct means bridge in Russian. “There are no words we can offer to them, but we can encourage them from Hiroshima,” which recovered from the devastation inflicted by the atomic bombing, Moct chief Shizuko Tsuya, 71, said. She said she hopes that the invitees will share the encouragement they received in Hiroshima with other Iranian people who lost their loved ones in conflicts. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]