‘I transported my spouse’s corpse for ninety minutes’ – BBC listens to accounts of demonstrators slain in Iran

Caution: This article contains graphic descriptions of death and injury

Returning home after participating in a protest in Tehran on 8 January, Reza embraced his wife Maryam for protection. “Out of nowhere, I sensed my arm became light – all I held was her jacket,” he shared with a relative who subsequently communicated with BBC Persian. Maryam was fatally shot – and they were unaware of the bullet’s origin.

Reza carried Maryam’s remains for an hour and a half. Worn out, he settled in an alley. Shortly after, a nearby door swung open. The residents invited them into their garage, provided a white sheet, and enclosed Maryam’s body within it.

Days prior to Maryam’s participation in the protests, she had informed her children – aged seven and 14 – about the situation in their homeland. “Sometimes parents attend protests and do not return,” she remarked. “My blood, and yours, is not more precious than that of anyone else.”

The names of Reza and Maryam have been altered to ensure their safety.

Maryam represents one of countless protestors who were anticipated to come home but did not, as authorities responded to the swift spread of protests with a brutal crackdown.

The Iranian Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), based in the US, claims to have verified the deaths of at least 2,400 protesters, including 12 children, in the past three weeks.

Determining the actual death toll is extremely challenging, as it is expected to increase in the coming days, due to a near-total internet blackout imposed by Iranian authorities since Thursday night.

Human rights organizations have no direct access to the nation and, like other international news agencies, the BBC is unable to report from within.

While Iranian authorities have not disclosed a death count, local outlets have reported that 100 security personnel have died, and protesters—depicted as “rioters and terrorists”—have set ablaze numerous mosques and banks across various cities.

Protests erupted in Tehran on 29 December following a sharp decline of the Iranian currency against the dollar. As demonstrations spread to numerous towns and cities, they began directing their anger towards the clerical regime of Iran.

Security forces quickly initiated a violent crackdown, with at least 34 protesters reported dead by 7 January, the 11th day of the unrest. However, it seems the most brutal responses occurred last Thursday and Friday, as thousands took to the streets nationwide to demand an end to the rule of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

BBC Persian has collected numerous testimonies from within Iran. Despite the potential risks, witnesses stated they wanted the world to be aware of the violence inflicted upon protesters.

“Our community reeks of blood – they’ve taken so many lives,” one individual told BBC Persian. Another recounted that security forces “primarily targeted heads and faces”.

The protests have proliferated across all 31 provinces. The information coming in clearly indicates that the scale of killings in smaller cities and towns is as severe as in major urban areas.

In Tonekabon, a community of 50,000 in the north, Sorena Golgun was killed on Friday. The 18-year-old university student was “shot in the heart” while escaping from a security force ambush, as revealed by a family member.

Similar to Sorena, many other victims were young and filled with aspirations. Robina Aminian, a 23-year-old fashion-design student desiring to study in Milan, was shot dead in Tehran on Thursday.

Her mother took about six hours to traverse from their home in Kermanshah to retrieve Robina’s body from Tehran. On her return journey, she cradled her cherished daughter. However, upon her arrival, security forces compelled her to inter the body in a secluded cemetery outside the city – devoid of any family or friends.

Not all those who lost their lives were protesters. Navid Salehi, a 24-year-old nurse from Kermanshah, was shot multiple times as he left work on Thursday.

Numerous bodies of protesters were taken to the Kahrizak Forensic Medical Centre in Tehran.

The scenes there were so disturbing that Sahanand, who chose to remain anonymous, opted to travel nearly 1,000km to a border zone to send video footage using the mobile data services of bordering countries. On Saturday, Sahanand reported observing more than 2,000 bodies lying on the ground.

Again, the BBC lacks the ability to verify this. Nonetheless, in two recently shared videos from Kahrizak, BBC Verify and BBC Persian have tallied at least 186 bodies in one video and at least 178 bodies in another. The two clips likely depict some of the same corpses, so we cannot definitively ascertain, but the actual count is probably much greater.

A young woman, speaking to BBC Persian while remaining anonymous, characterized last week’s events as resembling “a war.” The protesters appeared “more unified than ever,” yet the overwhelming circumstances compelled her to flee the country this week – joining many others who fear a renewed wave of executions and prosecutions by the authorities.

“I’m incredibly frightened about the fate of those who remain in Iran,” she expressed.

Further reporting by Farzad Seifikaran and Hasan Solhjou