Eyewitnesses have provided harrowing accounts of the violent response by Iranian security forces to widespread anti-government protests across the country. According to sources who spoke to The Update Desk, the authorities have resorted to lethal force, firing directly into crowds of unarmed demonstrators and leaving hundreds dead in recent days.
Omid, a protester in his 40s from a small city in southern Iran, described the scenes he witnessed: “I saw it with my own eyes – they fired directly into lines of protesters, and people fell where they stood.” He said the security forces used Kalashnikov-style assault rifles against the protesters, who were fighting a “brutal regime with empty hands.”
Similar reports have emerged from various cities, with eyewitnesses describing how the security forces and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) launched a violent crackdown, particularly on Friday. A young woman from Tehran said that day felt like “the day of judgement,” with security forces “only killing and killing and killing.”
Eyewitnesses in the city of Fardis, just west of Tehran, alleged that members of the paramilitary Basij force under the IRGC suddenly attacked protesters after hours without a police presence, firing live ammunition directly at them. “Two or three people were killed in every alley,” one witness claimed.
The true scale of the bloodshed remains unclear, as the Iranian authorities have not provided official statistics on the number of deaths. However, the Norway-based Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO) organisation has reported that at least 648 protesters have been killed, including nine people under the age of 18.
Some local sources and eyewitnesses have reported much higher figures, ranging from several hundred to thousands of deaths across different cities. The BBC has been unable to independently verify these claims, as international media outlets are heavily restricted in their ability to report from within Iran.
Nurses and medics who spoke to the BBC said hospitals in many cities had been overwhelmed and unable to treat the severely injured, especially those with head and eye wounds. Witnesses also described bodies “stacked on top of each other” and not handed over to families.
The violent crackdown has drawn international condemnation, with UN Secretary-General António Guterres expressing shock at the “reports of violence and excessive use of force by the Iranian authorities against protesters.” The UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Iran, Mai Sato, also voiced concern over the “use of lethal force by security forces.”
As the protests continue to rock Iran, the government’s brutal response has only served to further inflame the anger and determination of the demonstrators, who are fighting for their basic rights and freedoms against a regime that appears willing to use any means necessary to maintain its grip on power.
