Iran Protest Death Toll Could Top 30,000: Local Officials
time.com
According to two senior officials of the country’s Ministry of Health who spoke with TIME.

As many as 30,000 people could have been killed in the streets of Iran on Jan. 8 and 9 alone, two senior officials of the country’s Ministry of Health told TIME—indicating a dramatic surge in the death toll.

So many people were slaughtered by Iranian security services on that Thursday and Friday, it overwhelmed the state’s capacity to dispose of the dead. Stocks of body bags were exhausted, the officials said, and eighteen-wheel semi-trailers replaced ambulances.

The government’s internal count of the dead, not previously revealed, far surpasses the toll of 3,117 announced on Jan. 21 by regime hardliners who report directly to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. (Ministries report to the elected President.) The 30,000 figure is also far beyond tallies being compiled by activists methodically assigning names to the dead. As of Saturday, the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency said it had confirmed 5,459 deaths and is investigating 17,031 more.

  • freagle@lemmy.mlEnglish
    1318·
    2 days ago

    Man, Israel couldn’t even achieve these numbers with tanks, air planes, and the full force of their military in Gaza, and they were bombing fucking tent cities! 15000 dead per day my ass. Whoever believes this shit is a rube

    • mirshafie@europe.pubEnglish
      41·
      20 hours ago

      I’ve got to say these numbers do seem pretty unbelievable. It’s at least 10x the number of casualties compared to previous protests, in a much shorter span of time.

      Of course it’s difficult to assess the damage when communications are so sparse, but at least so for my family in Tehran and elsewhere have not indicated in any way that mass shootings were taking place. 15k dead would imply extensive use of live ammo. This would have been heard.

      That being said, my guess is that this crackdown was indeed more violent than it has been on previous occasions, simply because the US was lined up to bomb if it had looked like the government was losing control. So they had really strong incentives to repress extraordinarily hard. 15k is still a very tall order.