More than 36,500 Iranians were allegedly killed during a brutal, two-day crackdown against anti-regime protesters, the deadliest in the history of the Islamic Republic, according to a new report.
The latest estimates paint a horrific image of the violence that fell across Iran on Jan. 8 and 9 when Tehran’s security forces opened fire on thousands of civilians protesting the government’s rule and failure to fix the nation’s ailing economy.
Iranian security forces have stormed hospitals and arrested wounded protesters in response to the unrest — with even celebrities swept up in the crackdown, according to reports.
Despite downplaying the death toll in recent weeks, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ own records allegedly acknowledge that more than 36,000 people were killed during the two-day crackdown, sources from the Supreme National Security Council told Iran International.
The outlet verified the count with other government sources, medical records, field reports, and interviews with witnesses — with the deaths reported in more than 400 cities and towns across Iran.
The data claims that more than 2,500 people were killed in Rasht, with at least 1,800 in Mashhad. There were no clear figures for Tehran, where images of hundreds of body bags littering morgues have gone viral.
The estimates from Iran International are more than seven-times larger than what has been reported so far, with the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) previously confirming 5,137 deaths on Saturday.
Mai Sato, the UN’s special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran, had warned that the death toll could reach 20,000 or more based on the reports coming from medical centers in the country.
Iran’s National Security Council, meanwhile, had only acknowledged 3,117 deaths, with only 2,427 of those dead considered “innocent” in Tehran’s eyes.
The true death toll in Iran remains unclear amid a nationwide internet shutdown, which went into effect on the same day that the killings began.
The violent response to the nationwide protests has fueled tensions between Iran and the US, with President Trump last week calling for Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to be ousted.
Trump vowed to slap a 25% tariff on any nation doing business with Iran — including China and the United Arab Emirates — and has ordered a stepped-up military presence in the region.
The president said last week that he’s dispatched the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group, telling reporters that “maybe we won’t have to use” force — but said it was “just in case.”
Additional reporting by Jorge Fitz-Gibbon
