UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk told the Human Rights Council on Monday that he was “alarmed by the resumption of attacks” between the United States and Iran, appealing to both sides to return immediately to negotiations as the conflict’s civilian toll continues to mount.
“Recent reports of civilian deaths and injuries, including at a wedding in Hormozgan province, are particularly concerning,” Türk said, referring to a US strike on the town of Kuhestak in Sirik county that Iranian authorities say killed at least four people.
Iran-US War Latest Live News: What did the UN human rights chief say?
Addressing the council, Türk warned that the broader fallout from the conflict extended well beyond the immediate casualties on the ground. “The geopolitical and economic impacts of this entirely avoidable crisis are again reverberating around the world,” he said, framing the resumption of hostilities as a preventable escalation rather than an inevitable one.
Iran-US War Latest Live News: What happened during the wedding strike in Sirik?
According to Iran’s Red Crescent Society, shrapnel from a US missile strike hit a residential property in Kuhestak on the night of 1 September, while a family wedding celebration was under way. The Hormozgan governor’s office later identified four of those killed as four-year-old Amir Ali Karimi, sixteen-year-old Mohammad Malahi, and two women, Kolsoum Malahi and Zarkhatoun Taheri, both 43. More than sixty other people were reported wounded, with some accounts putting the injury toll considerably higher amid conflicting figures released in the hours after the strike.
Iran-US War Latest Live News: How has the US responded to the allegations?
US Central Command spokesperson Tim Hawkins said the military was aware of reports of civilian casualties, noting that they had originated from Iranian state media, and maintained that “the US military never targets civilians.” Washington has not issued a further detailed public account of the strike or confirmed the specific target it says it was pursuing in the area.
Iran-US War Latest Live News: How has Iran characterised the attack?
Iranian officials have rejected the US position outright. Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei described the strike as a “war crime,” writing on social media that “Sirik is not a story. The civilians are real. The victims are real.” The Iranian Red Crescent separately wrote to the International Criminal Court calling for an independent investigation, saying the reported civilian character of the wedding venue “warrants an independent, impartial, thorough, and effective investigation.” Neither the United States nor Iran is a party to the ICC’s founding Rome Statute, meaning the court does not have automatic jurisdiction over either country.
Iran-US War Latest Live News: What is the broader toll of the conflict on civilians?
Iranian officials have repeatedly linked the Sirik strike to an earlier, far deadlier incident on 28 February, when a US strike hit a girls’ school in the same province, in the town of Minab, killing more than 150 people, most of them children. A preliminary US military assessment reportedly concluded that American forces were likely responsible for that earlier strike, attributing it to outdated intelligence that had wrongly classified the site as linked to Iranian military infrastructure, though Washington has yet to release a final public accounting of the incident.
Iran-US War Latest Live News: Why is Türk calling for renewed negotiations?
Türk’s appeal comes amid renewed diplomatic activity elsewhere in the conflict, with US officials separately engaged in efforts to manage tensions around Gulf shipping lanes and Iran’s tanker fleet. His comments to the council reflect growing concern among international bodies that the human cost of the conflict, and its wider economic ripple effects, are increasing even as diplomatic channels between Washington and Tehran remain intermittently active.
Iran-US War Latest Live News: What happens next diplomatically?
With Iranian authorities pressing for international legal scrutiny of the Sirik strike and Washington maintaining it does not deliberately target civilians, the dispute over accountability for the attack appears likely to persist alongside the wider military standoff. Türk’s call for an immediate return to negotiations adds further international pressure on both governments, though neither side has yet signalled a concrete step back toward the kind of talks he is urging.
