Fragments of carnage in Iran emerge under blackout

Through scattered Starlink messages, rare phone calls, and videos smuggled out at great personal risk, fragments of evidence have begun to form a picture of mass killings across major cities, smaller towns, and even villages.

In a brief message sent via Starlink from Tehran to Iran International, one resident said the situation in the capital and other cities was so dire that “every person is reporting the death of a family member, relative, neighbor, or friend,” stressing that “this is not an exaggeration.”

“The air was filled with the smell of blood in Tajrish and Narmak,” an Iranian user outside the country quoted a contact as saying in a post on X, referring to neighborhoods in north and east Tehran.

“They were washing the blood from the streets with the municipal irrigation tankers they use to water roadside plants.”

A Tehran resident told Iran International that he saw heavy deployments of IRGC forces early on Thursday morning—just before the blackout—with security units transporting heavy machine guns and concealing them in parking garages across different neighborhoods.

An image later circulated showing a mounted military-grade machine gun on a security forces vehicle in Tehran’s Sadeghieh district, reportedly taken days earlier.

Iran International has reported that as many as 12,000 people may have been killed over just two days, January 8 and 9. CBS News, citing two sources—one of them inside Iran—suggested the figure could be as high as 20,000.

Thousands more have reportedly been detained nationwide. Iranian authorities have labeled anyone present on the streets after January 8 a mohareb—“one who wages war against God”—a charge that carries the death penalty.

The whereabouts of most detainees remain unknown.

The government, meanwhile, claims protesters killed hundreds of security personnel and government supporters. State media has broadcast images of a mass funeral for 100 alleged victims.

Unverified reports suggest that some families have been pressured to sign documents identifying their killed relatives as members of the Basij militia—an apparent effort to inflate official casualty figures.

BBC Persian journalist Farzad Seifkaran reported receiving a message from Tehran stating that one family was told it must either declare its relative an “active Basij member” or sign a document demanding retribution against three unnamed individuals before being allowed to retrieve the body.

Similar pressure was reported during the 2009 protests. More recently, authorities attempted to portray Amir-Hesam Khodayari, a 22-year-old killed in Kouhdasht, Lorestan province, as a Basij member—an effort publicly rejected by his father during the burial.

In several cases, families have also said they were asked to pay for the bullets used to kill their relatives..

On Sunday, two short videos surfaced showing families inside a hangar belonging to Tehran’s forensic medicine organization in the Kahrizak area. Dozens of bodies wrapped in black bags were visible, some on gurneys and others laid directly on the floor.

In one clip, a woman’s voice can be heard crying out to her child: “Get up my love, get up for God’s sake,” as families wander among the bodies searching in shock.

The footage appeared to capture only a fraction of what was taking place.

Hours later, Vahid, an Iranian user based in the United States who has documented Iranian protests since 2009, released a compilation of 12 videos. Some showed the interior of the same facility, where a screen displayed names and photos of the dead while a loudspeaker called out names, instructing families to collect bodies.

According to Vahid, the footage was brought out of Iran by someone who had recently escaped the country. “They are bringing in the bodies in pick-up trucks and telling people to search them themselves,” the individual told him.

Later footage showed bodies being unloaded from trailers. Outside the building, hundreds of people moved among rows of corpses laid directly on the ground, wailing and screaming.

A source who sent images from Kahrizak told Vahid he had traveled nearly 1,000 kilometers to reach a border area where he could access the internet.

Amid the mourning, signs of defiance emerged. Rather than chanting traditional Islamic phrases, some mourners clapped and ululated, as if escorting a bride or groom.

Others raised photographs of the dead and shouted slogans including: “Death to Khamenei,” “This is the year of bloodshed, Khamenei will be toppled,” and “I will kill the one who killed my brother.”