The death toll from the crackdown on anti-government protests in Iran is now feared to be in the thousands, according to BBC Persian correspondent and a source speaking to Reuters news agency.
Source says he can “say with confidence, the numbers who have been killed must be in thousands”, adding that although the government has used force before, “this time around it is absolutely unprecedented”.
Reuters news agency has also reported an Iranian security official as saying the death toll could be around 2,000 people. The source said the estimation included security personnel as well as civilians and blamed “terrorists” for the deaths.
This comes as the UN’s human rights office spokesperson Jeremy Laurence told a conference in Geneva that “reports indicate hundreds have been killed and thousands arrested”.
This estimate comes from the UN’s own sources on the ground, Laurence said. “These are reliable sources”.
The update comes after one human rights group yesterday said it believed nearly 650 protesters have been killed and thousands injured.
Various factors make it difficult to determine the number of people who have died during the protests in Iran. The country restricts international news organisations from operating there and there has been an internet blackout for the past five days.
‘We are witnessing final days of regime,’ Germany’s Merz says
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has said this morning “we are now witnessing the final days and weeks” of the Iranian regime as other European countries summon Iran’s ambassadors over the increasing violence.
“When a regime can only maintain power through violence, then it is effectively at its end. The population is now rising up against this regime,” Merz said today.
Meanwhile Spain’s foreign minister has summoned Iran’s ambassador to Madrid to express “strong repudiation and condemnation” of the protest crackdown, AFP news agency reports.
Finland’s Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen also said she would summon Iran’s ambassador, writing on X that: “Iran’s regime has shut down the internet to be able to kill and oppress in silence.”
“This will not be tolerated,” she added.
From rising inflation to threats of US intervention – how we got here
Protests in Iran began over two weeks ago, on 28 December, when shopkeepers took to the streets of the capital Tehran over another sharp fall in the value of the Iranian currency, the rial, against the US dollar on the open market.
The rial has sunk to a record low over the past year and inflation has soared – meaning every day items like cooking oil and meat have risen to crippling highs.
The economy has been weakened by government mismanagement and corruption, as well as sanctions over Iran’s nuclear programme.
Protests spread to other cities alongside wider calls for political change. According to US-based Iranian Human Rights Activists News Agency, demonstrations have taken place in at least 186 cities and towns across all of Iran’s provinces.
Since then, hundreds of protesters have been killed and thousands injured, according to human rights groups. But a digital blackout has stopped most Iranians from contacting the outside world, with millions cut off from internet access – making it difficult to verify information.
In recent days, US President Donald Trump has threatened intervention action.
On Monday, he warned that the US is considering “very strong options” to intervene – and overnight, he announced a 25% tariff on goods from countries with commercial ties to Iran.
His national security team is expected to meet later to discuss intervention options, and Trump has already been briefed on a range of military and covert tools his country could use, officials tell the BBC’s US partner CBS.
Internet still down, but some phone calls from Iran going through
Some international calls from Iran have gone through today. Internet is still down in Iran at the moment, while some are connected via Starlink, Elon Musk’s SpaceX satellite internet.
From what I’ve heard from someone living near Tehran, there were “checkpoints in every block” where cars and the phones of their occupants were being inspected.
The person also said that from last night, the jamming in their area on their Starlink access had increased and it kept “connecting and disconnecting”.
‘In most hospitals, it’s like a warzone’
Professor Shahram Kordasti is from Iran but has been working as an oncologist in London for the last two decades.
Kordasti maintains regular contact with a network of other doctors in Iran and says that in previous periods of unrest “it’s always been relatively easy to get information”.
This time, all channels of communication have been blocked – including Starlink, which had been working a few days ago – he says.
He tells BBC Newsday the last message he received was from a colleague in Tehran told him: “In most hospitals, it’s like a warzone. We are short of supplies, short of blood.”
Though he says he’s unable to verify this, Kordasti says his doctor contacts across “two to three hospitals” tell him they’ve treated hundreds of people who are injured or who have died.
“The numbers we’re getting are mainly from Tehran or big cities but we have no clue what’s going on in the smaller cities.”
There are ongoing limitations and difficulties in receiving information from inside Iran that can be used to verify accounts.
In recent days, staff at several hospitals in Iran have told the BBC their facilities are overwhelmed with dead or injured patients.
A medic at one Tehran hospital said there were “direct shots to the heads of the young people, to their hearts as well”, while a doctor said an eye hospital in the capital had gone into crisis mode.
How Iranian authorities are cracking down on protests
Source has received repeated reports of Iranian security forces cracking down on protests with deadly force as thousands are now feared dead as a result of the violent clampdown on anti-government demonstrations.
Earlier we heard from one Iranian who said they saw security forces fire directly into a line of protesters and “people fell where they stood”.
Medics have also described hospitals as “overwhelmed” with dead and injured.
We are relying on external reports to estimate the number of people who have been killed due to the days long internet blackout in Iran.
Among those reportedly killed are football coach Amir Mohammad Koohkan, 26, and Aminian, 23, a Kurdish fashion student.
Iranian state media also yesterday broadcast funeral processions for members of security services who had been killed.
Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi claimed security forces had brought anti-government protests under total control on Monday.
According to state TV, supporters of the authorities took to the streets in solidarity against recent “terrorist actions”. There have been unconfirmed reports of some protests continuing last night.
SOURCE: BBC
