Iran in shock after 11-year-old boy commits suicide over poverty

Oct 13, 2020

An 11-year-old Iranian schoolboy, Mohammad Mousavizadeh, has committed suicide by hanging from the kitchen of his family’s rented, humble house in the southern city of Dayyer, Bushehr province, leaving the Iranian society in yet another state of disbelief. 

The horrifying details were released by Mohammad’s mother, Fatemeh, who earns a living for her three other kids — one of them disabled — and her ailing husband, through cleaning houses as well as small donations from relatives.

“He insisted to sleep in my arms the night before his death,” the mother told Rokna News Agency, which closely monitors developments regarding Iran’s social maladies. “I had no idea what he was up to the day after,” which is when she “found him lying on the kitchen floor with his black and blue face” after he had hung himself. According to the mother, Mohammad was pushed to the edge of suicide after his dream about having a smartphone that he needed to join his online classes never came true.

As the Middle East’s biggest coronavirus victim, Iran has transformed much of its regular curriculum into virtual courses, for which students need a reliable internet connection and such devices as tablets or smartphones.

“The principal had promised several times to provide him and two other kids with smartphones, but he never did,” Mohammad’s mother recounted. Officials at Mohammad’s school, on the contrary, said they had already given him the device for free, declaring that they possessed evidence showing the kid had joined the online courses. Yet, the mother accused the school managers of “lying,” saying Mohammad only had a broken phone, not a smart one. A note in grief written by Mohammad’s teacher says the boy had repeatedly sent her messages indicating that his “broken phone” was incapable of sending or receiving images he needed for his homework.