"They just kept killing." What eyewitnesses say about the bloody suppression of protests in Iran
"I saw it with my own eyes – they were shooting straight into the crowd of demonstrators, and people were falling on the spot."
Amid's voice begins to tremble as he recounts his experiences; this man fears that the authorities will track him down. Breaking the wall of silence that has arisen between Iran and the outside world requires immense courage, given the risk of repression from the regime, writes BBC.
Amid, now barely over 40 (name changed for security reasons), participated in protests for several days in a small city in southern Iran. He attributes the reason for the demonstrations to a sharp deterioration in the economic situation.
According to this man, security forces opened fire on protesters with weapons resembling Kalashnikov assault rifles.
"We are fighting a brutal regime with our bare hands," Amid says.
BBC correspondents received several similar testimonies of the brutal suppression of protests that swept Iran over the past week.
Since then, Iranian authorities have shut down the internet, making it harder than ever to obtain information about what is happening. The Iranian government prohibits the BBC Persian Service from operating within the country.
One of the largest nationwide protests in Iran took place on Thursday – it was already the 12th evening of demonstrations. Apparently, many people decided to take to the streets on Thursday and Friday after calls from Reza Pahlavi, the son of the exiled Shah of Iran, whose father was overthrown in the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
The next day, Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei declared: "The Islamic Republic will not retreat." It appears that the most horrific bloodshed began precisely after this warning, as the security forces and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) are subordinate to Khamenei.
Iranian authorities accuse the US and Israel of inciting unrest. According to Iranian state media, they call the protests "terrorist acts."
"Doomsday"
A girl from Tehran calls last Thursday "Doomsday."
"Even the most remote areas of Tehran were filled with demonstrators. It was hard to believe that this could happen in such places," she says.
"But on Friday, the security forces just killed, killed and killed. Because I saw it all with my own eyes, I felt so sick that I completely lost morale. Friday was a bloody day."
She says that after the mass killings on Friday, people are afraid to go out into the streets and are now chanting slogans while staying in alleys and their homes.
According to our interviewee, Iran resembled a battlefield: demonstrators and security forces took positions and hid in the streets.
"In war, both sides have weapons. But here, people just chant – and they are killed. It's a one-sided war," she adds.
Eyewitnesses to what happened in the city of Fardis, located west of Tehran, say that on Friday, members of the Basij volunteer unit of the IRGC unexpectedly attacked demonstrators, despite the police being absent from the streets for several hours before that.
According to witnesses, armed militiamen in uniform and on motorcycles opened fire to kill on protesters. Unmarked cars also drove through alleys, from which they shot at local residents who were not participating in the demonstrations.
"In every alley, two or three people were killed," one eyewitness claims.
What is known about the number of dead
People who spoke to BBC Persian Service correspondents say that it is difficult for those in the outside world to even imagine what is currently happening in Iran.
Footage taken in the city of Khorramabad shows a protester hanging the pre-revolutionary flag of Iran on Thursday.
According to them, the number of dead currently reported by international media is only a small fraction of their own estimates.
Foreign journalists cannot work freely in Iran and mainly have to rely on information from Iranian human rights groups operating outside the country. On Monday, the Norway-based IHRNGO group stated that at least 648 demonstrators, including those under 18, were killed in Iran.
Some local sources and eyewitnesses speak of a very large number of killed across the country – their estimates range from several hundred to several thousand.
The BBC cannot independently verify this data yet. Iranian authorities have not provided official – or verifiable – data on the dead during the protests.
However, Iranian media report that 100 security personnel were killed during the demonstrations. They claim that the demonstrators, whom they call "rioters," set fire to dozens of mosques and banks in various cities.
Video footage verified by BBC Persian Service journalists also shows burned police cars and some government buildings.
What can be inferred from footage and medical testimonies
Eyewitness testimonies and footage received by the BBC Persian Service mostly come from larger cities, such as Tehran, neighboring Karaj, Rasht in the north, Mashhad in the northeast, and Shiraz in the south. In these areas, more people have access to the internet via the Starlink satellite service.
However, we have very little information from smaller towns, where there is virtually no access to Starlink and where many people also died in the early stages of the confrontation.
Nevertheless, a sufficient amount of consistent testimonies is constantly arriving from many different cities, indicating a very brutal suppression of protests and widespread use of lethal force.
Doctors who spoke to the BBC reported seeing many dead bodies, as well as wounded demonstrators. They report that hospitals in many cities are overcrowded and cannot provide help to people who have sustained severe injuries, particularly to the head and eyes. Some eyewitnesses say that bodies are "piled on top of each other" and not released to families.
On Sunday, the Vahid Online Telegram channel, run by Iranian activists, published several videos showing bodies of people at the Kahrizak forensic center in Tehran. Judging by the footage, relatives of the deceased are mourning their loved ones or trying to identify the remains.
In one video, likely taken in Kahrizak, relatives look at photographs of unidentified bodies on a screen. It appears that there are many bodies in black bags in this center, as well as on a nearby street – apparently, only some of them have been identified.
One video shows a warehouse room where several bodies are located. Another video shows a truck from which the bodies of the deceased are being unloaded.
A morgue employee at a cemetery in Mashhad reported that from Friday morning, 180 to 200 bodies with severe injuries were delivered there. According to him, these people were immediately buried.
A source in Rasht said that 70 bodies were delivered to the morgue of one of the city's hospitals on Thursday. This person said that security forces demanded relatives "pay for the bullets" before releasing the bodies to them.
A hospital employee in eastern Tehran said that about 40 bodies were delivered there on Thursday. We are not naming this hospital for security reasons.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres stated on Sunday that he was "shocked by reports of violence and the excessive use of force by Iranian authorities against protesters, which has led to deaths and injuries in recent days."
"I want to emphasize that, regardless of the number of dead, the use of lethal force by security forces is a cause for concern," Mai Sato, UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran, told the BBC Persian Service.
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