Malema-led EFF party urges International community to label Trump “war criminal”

The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) has urged the international community to declare United States President Donald Trump a war criminal following a deadly airstrike on a girls’ elementary school in Iran.

In a statement released on Saturday, the South African opposition party led by Julius Malema said it was mourning the deaths of more than 165 children and staff killed in the attack.

The party said the strike targeted a school in the southern Iranian city of Minab on February 28, 2026, during a wider military operation against Iran.

Reports indicate that the school was struck during missile attacks launched at a nearby Iranian naval installation.

The incident occurred as part of escalating hostilities between the United States and Iran.

The EFF described the strike as a “brutal attack” that had left the world in shock as the full scale of casualties became known.

“The brutal attack has left the world reeling as the death toll reaches a final tally,” the party said, citing satellite imagery and video evidence which it claims shows a precision strike on the school at the same time missiles were fired at a nearby military facility.

According to the party, preliminary confirmations suggesting that the school was hit during a U.S. airstrike had even come from American military investigators.

“As the Commander in Chief of the U.S. armed forces, Donald Trump is directly responsible for the massacre of children at a place of learning,” the EFF said.

The party argued that the international community had remained largely silent while what it described as escalating aggression by the United States continued.

It therefore called on global bodies including the United Nations, the African Union and the European Union to isolate the U.S. administration.

“The world can no longer hide behind diplomacy with an inhumane regime,” the statement said.

The EFF also accused Trump of destabilising several countries and undermining the sovereignty of nations that resist U.S. policies.

Investigations into the Minab airstrike remain ongoing, with U.S. officials saying American forces would not deliberately target civilian sites and that the circumstances surrounding the strike are still being examined.

International organisations and rights groups have called for an independent probe into the incident, which killed mostly schoolchildren aged between seven and twelve.