No one knew that the last day of the 40-day war, just hours before the ceasefire began, would also be the last day of Sina, Saber, and Masoumeh’s lives, as they sat in their car, stopped at a checkpoint under Chaharbagh Bridge in Karaj, about to be killed by a missile.
A few days after the United States and Israel resumed their attacks on Iran, checkpoint patrols started operating in cities, and one of them had been set up under Chaharbagh Bridge in Karaj. On the morning of April 7, 2026, three members of the Moradi family (Sina, the family’s 17-year-old son; Saber, the father; and Masoumeh Jafarzadeh, the mother) decided to visit their small garden in Karaj. A few minutes after they set off, their car came to a stop beside the checkpoint under Chaharbagh Bridge. Moments later, the bridge was struck, and Sina, who was behind the wheel, was killed at that very moment.
“His body was badly burned; it had caught fire.” These are the words Sina’s uncle, Kazem Jafarzadeh, uses to describe his young nephew. He remembers the hours and days after the attack vividly. Masoumeh, his sister and Sina’s mother, badly wounded in the strike, called their father and told him, “Dad! They hit us with a missile.” Then she lost consciousness.
After the attack on the bridge, the wounded were taken to Shahid Madani Hospital in Karaj. Kazem says his sister stayed conscious until she was taken to the hospital, and after that she had time for only a few words to her father: “Halalam kon” (“Forgive me”). After this brief farewell, she closed her eyes and passed away. Masoumeh was born in 1980. She held a bachelor’s degree in law and was a homemaker.
Saber, Masoumeh’s husband and Sina’s father, fell into a coma after the attack because of severe burns. The right side of his body, much of his head and face, his hair, and his legs had been burned, and he needed two surgeries. A few days after the operations, his condition improved, and he was transferred to Baqiyatallah Hospital to continue his treatment. Until then, Saber did not know that Masoumeh and Sina had been killed in the attack. He believed they were still being treated at Shahid Madani Hospital. All the family members, and even the medical staff at Shahid Madani Hospital, knew that Saber was still unaware that his wife and child had been killed.
After being transferred to Baqiyatallah Hospital in Tehran, upon regaining consciousness, Saber learned from the whispers of the hospital staff that Sina and Masoumeh were no longer alive. Hearing this news, he suffered a cardiac arrest and passed away. This account comes from Kazem, Sina’s uncle. Saber was approximately 53 years old and worked in the construction industry.
Soheil, Saber and Masoumeh’s other son, was doing his military service at a garrison in Kerman when Chaharbagh Bridge in Kordan was attacked. Relatives had told him that his family’s car had collided with a truck. Only when he reached the hospital did he learn how his family had been killed in the attack on the bridge, and that they had been buried in Section 42 of Tehran’s Behesht-e Zahra cemetery.