QUETTA: Pakistanis fleeing Iran described explosions and missile strikes across Tehran shaking the ground under their feet and engulfing buildings in fire and smoke in a city emptied of many of its residents. The conflict has widened sharply, with a US submarine sinking an Iranian warship off Sri Lanka on Wednesday and NATO air defenses destroying an Iranian missile fired toward Turkiye.
Governments have been scrambling to evacuate stranded citizens, with most of the region’s airspace closed due to the risk of missiles hitting passenger planes.
“I was in the classroom when a powerful explosion rocked our university building,” Hareem Zahra, 23, a student at the Tehran University of Engineering, told Reuters after crossing Pakistan’s land border with Iran.
“We saw thick smoke coming from many buildings on fire,” she said, adding Tehran was under attack until the moment she left.
Nearly 1,000 students, businessmen and pilgrims have fled Iran since the war started out of a total 35,000 Pakistanis in the country, Mudassir Tipu, Pakistan’s ambassador to Tehran, said.
