Nobody knows how many of the girls had time to even scream before their small bodies were destroyed in a savage attack from the sky around 10.45am.
Witnesses reported the school was hit by three rapid strikes, known as a 'triple-tap', causing the roof to collapse into classrooms.
In the carnage that followed, the families of the 168 victims of the airstrike on the Shajareh Tayyebeh girls' elementary school found themselves thrown into a world of unimaginable agony on February 28 as they laid the remains of their little ones to rest.
At the funerals, heartrending details emerged. Fatemeh Ahmadi, 9, had loved art, especially drawing flowers and birds. Maryam Karimi, 8, one of the youngest of the dead, had only started school six months earlier and was still learning how to write her name. Nobody would wish this living nightmare on their worst enemy.
Or would they? In the aftermath of the attack, finger-pointing, speculation and conspiracy theories threatened to turn the tragic deaths of 110 schoolgirls and 58 adults in Minab, Iran, into a weapon in the modern information war.
Outrage quickly spread on social media. The Left-wing commentator Owen Jones, who has more than a million followers, wrote: 'If a foreign power wiped out 160 American schoolgirls, it would be regarded as one of the biggest traumas and crimes of the post-war US.' Muslim activist and broadcaster Mehdi Hasan, whose following is almost twice as large, branded the tragedy 'a moral abomination'.
Before long, Donald Trump struck back. Speaking aboard Air Force One on Saturday, the President denied American responsibility for the disaster. 'Based on what I've seen, that was done by Iran,' he told reporters. 'They're very inaccurate as you know with their munitions. They have no accuracy whatsoever.'
Amid the war of words, what exactly do we know for certain?
On the first day of the war, exactly one hour after the Israeli Air Force opened the campaign with a devastating salvo on the Ayatollah's residence, up to six Tomahawk missiles fell on the Sayyid al-Shuhada naval complex in Minab, Hormozgan province, on the southern coast of Iran. The complex, which is about the size of 40 football pitches, is linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy.
Formerly part of the military site, satellite images showed the school had been walled off since 2016 and given its own entrance. It had clear civilian indicators, such as a playground and a sports field, which should have been visible from the air, especially considering that the attack took place in broad daylight.
Raytheon, the U.S. manufacturer of the Tomahawk, sells the weapon to some allies, but there is no evidence to suggest that the Iranian regime has acquired the cruise missile. However, Trump's combative press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump 'has a right to share his opinions with the American public'.
Whatever caused it, the attack was devastating. Over half the two-storey building collapsed entirely, burying people in the rubble, with graphic footage showing body parts in the masonry while smoke billowed out of windows, past walls with murals showing cartoon figures, crayons and an apple.
According to a medic attending the scene, the headmaster had moved a group of pupils to a prayer room after the first explosion and asked parents to collect their children. By the time they arrived, their daughters had lost their lives in two subsequent strikes.
The early evidence pointed to a deadly American error. Videos from US Central Command, filmed on the same day that the school was struck, showed the cruise missiles being launched from a US warship as part of its operations against the Iranian regime.
Satellite images taken soon after the strike showed up to six identical circular holes peppered across the naval base, including a building listed as a clinic and pharmacy, as well as in the section of the adjoining school building that remained standing.
Within hours of the disaster, Iran's foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, had described it as 'crimes against the Iranian people'. The following day, Iran's ambassador to the UN claimed the US and Israel were guilty of the deliberate targeting of civilian infrastructure, including a school. Three days after the tragedy, Iranian state propaganda TV broadcast the funerals live and plastered pictures of the children's coffins across every screen in the country.
From the beginning, the Israelis have been adamant that they were not involved, saying the IDF struck military targets only. The Pentagon, however, was more tentative. Its first statement on the matter did not come until the following day when Captain Tim Hawkins, spokesman for US Central Command, told the media: 'We are aware of reports of civilian harm...We take these reports seriously and are looking into them.'
Outrage grew. France’s Emmanuel Macron called for an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council. The United Nations called the strike a ‘grave assault on children, on education’, pointing out that schools are civilian objects and children are expressly protected under international humanitarian law.
As recrimination raged, rumours started to circulate on anti-regime Telegram accounts that the carnage had been caused by misfiring Iranian rockets. On social media, false claims surfaced that the IRGC had admitted mistakenly targeting the school, while other accounts suggested the footage was fake, originating from Pakistan. Both were quickly debunked by journalists.
Regardless, Trump’s furious intervention came on March 7, a week after the attacks, breathing fresh life into discredited allegations and pouring fuel on the fire. In response, the next day, Italian leader Giorgia Meloni retaliated with the strongest condemnation yet by any world leader, branding the strike a ‘massacre’.
Trump’s narrative began to unravel further the following day. Analysis of publicly available sources pointed to an increasing likelihood that the strike was the result of an American Tomahawk missile, probably a stray from an attack on the nearby military base. A video shared by Mehr News Agency and geolocated by western media data and forensic teams showed the moment the missile hit.
Speaking on Tuesday, munitions expert NR Jenzen-Jones, director of Armament Research Services, suggested that the visual evidence appeared to match the Tomahawk, identified by the unique wings protruding from either side of the body which fold away during launch and extend once the missile is airborne. ‘Given the belligerents, that indicates it is a US strike as Israel is not known to possess Tomahawk missiles,’ Mr Jenzen-Jones said. ‘Despite various claims circulating online, the munition in question is clearly not an Iranian Soumar missile.’
Multiple media outlets, including BBC Verify and Sky News, arrived at the same conclusion.
On Wednesday, the New York Times decisively reported that a preliminary Pentagon probe had determined Washington was indeed responsible. The working assumption, it revealed, was that US Central Command had created the target coordinates for the strike using out-of-date information from when the school building was being used by the IRGC.
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And yesterday, former prime minister Gordon Brown intervened in his capacity as UN envoy for global education, calling for the creation of an international criminal court for crimes against children.
Almost two weeks after the attack, the likely truth seems obvious to all but the conspiracy theorists. Questions remain about the identity of the American officers who apparently approved the strike coordinates, why the outdated intelligence remained in the target database, and whether planners knew civilians were nearby. Further questions surround Trump's statements.
Two conclusions seem all but certain, however. Firstly, it was probably an American strike. Secondly, they didn't mean to do it, of course. Terrible mistakes happen in war; but if it was a US missile that unintentionally killed those dozens of girls then White House should at least have decency to admit it - rather than simply blame wicked regime that with bitter irony has killed so many young girls itself.