Iran today, Africa tomorrow

Israel and America’s war on Iran has killed more than 1,500 people in a matter of weeks, and the toll continues to rise.

In Tehran on March 7, mourners gathered around the coffin of Zainab Sahebi, a two-year-old girl killed in an Israeli air strike. A small doll lay beside her coffin as relatives and neighbours crowded the funeral, grappling with the loss of a child taken in an instant.

Zainab’s funeral was only one of many.

On March 3, thousands gathered in Minab, in Hormozgan province, for a mass funeral after the Shajareh Tayyebeh girls’ primary school was destroyed during the opening day of the bombing campaign. Rows of coffins were carried through the city as families laid to rest at least 175 students and staff, most of them children, killed in one of the deadliest incidents of the conflict.

Violence like this has a long and familiar history.

From Gaza to Lebanon and now Iran, civilians continue to bear the price of imperialism.

This escalation has not been limited to civilians. Israeli strikes also killed Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, along with senior military officials.

For Africa, the crisis unfolding thousands of kilometres away is not a distant geopolitical calamity.

Instability in the Gulf has historically translated into sharp fuel price increases across the continent, with imported petroleum underpinning transport, electricity generation and food supply chains from Lagos and Nairobi to Johannesburg and Dakar.