Iran’s World Cup players wear pins for victims of deadly strike on school as they arrive in Mexico

TIJUANA, Mexico — Iran’s World Cup team arrived in Mexico wearing lapel pins highlighting the victims of a deadly missile strike on an elementary school at the start of the war in the Mideast.

The players wore gold-colored pins with the number “168” on their jackets when getting off their plane Sunday in Tijuana, Mexico. It referred to the people killed, most of them children, when a Feb. 28 strike, likely launched by the U.S., hit the school in Minab in southern Iran.

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Iran’s embassy in Hungary on Monday noted the pins in a social media post with a reference to Minab.

The strike on the school, which was close to a Revolutionary Guard base, was previously memorialized by the Iran team before a warmup game in March in Antalya, Turkey. Players held up pink and purple school backpacks while their national anthem played.

Neither the United States nor Israel has accepted responsibility for the attack on the school, which has come under staunch criticism from the United Nations and human rights groups. The U.S. military is investigating and has said it would never target civilians.

The Iran delegation flew on a private jet from Antalya on Saturday to Tijuana, after a late change of plans two weeks ago to use Mexico as a training base instead of Tucson, Arizona.

Iran is preparing to play all three of its group-stage games in the U.S, which has delayed processing visas for players and has denied some to members of the delegation which have ties to the Revolutionary Guard.

However, it is unclear when the Iran team will be allowed to enter the U.S. ahead of their June 15 opening game in Inglewood near Los Angeles, to face New Zealand.

Iran is due to return to Tijuana between games, and go back to Inglewood on June 21 to play Belgium, then head to Seattle to face Egypt on June 26.

Iran and the U.S. could meet in the round of 32 on July 3 at the Dallas Cowboys’ stadium in Arlington, Texas, if both teams come second in their groups.