The Iranian regime has killed nearly 16,500 protesters and injured 330,000 as it tries to quell nationwide unrest, The Sunday Times of London reported, citing the testimonies of doctors on the ground.
The regime forces, bolstered by Hezbollah and other foreign fighters, have been gunning down demonstrators in cities across Iran as the regime blocks people’s access to the internet and phones. The newspaper called it a “genocide under digital darkness,” referring to the near-total internet blackout imposed by Tehran since last Friday.
Unable to cover up the carnage left behind by the security forces, the regime has now raised the official death toll to 5,000. “At least 5,000 people have been killed in protests in Iran, including about 500 security personnel, an Iranian official in the region said on Sunday,” Reuters reported.
On Friday, Iran’s ruler Ayatullah Khamenei admitted that ‘thousands’ have been killed during the unrest, which he claimed is ‘an American conspiracy’ against his regime.
The British newspaper reported:
The Sunday Times [of London] has obtained a new report from doctors on the ground, which says at least 16,500 protesters have died and 330,000 have been injured, most of them in two days of utter slaughter in the most brutal crackdown by the clerical regime in its 47-year existence.Most of the victims are thought to have been younger than 30. (…) The doctors spoke using Starlink — satellite technology produced by Elon Musk’s SpaceX that enables people to access the internet via terminals, bypassing traditional internet infrastructure. (…)The doctors’ testimony, as well as graphic video, was provided to The Sunday Times by Parasta as it is too risky for people on the ground to speak to outsiders. (…)The accounts reflect the scenes in graphic videos that have emerged from Iran in recent days, as well as voicenotes, and descriptions by some witnesses crossing the border into Turkey. They tell of IRGC forces and its Basij militia on motorbikes using live ammunition from Kalashnikovs and even machineguns mounted on pick-up trucks to mow people down. There were reports, too, of Hashd al Shaabi, Shia militias from Iraq, being bussed in.Figures compiled by staff in eight major eye hospitals and 16 emergency departments across the country reveal that at least 16,500-18,000 people have been killed and 330,00 to 360,000 injured, including children and pregnant women. At least 700 to 1,000 people have lost an eye. One eye hospital in Tehran alone, Noor Clinic, has documented 7,000 eye injuries. “There are so many shotgun-related eye injuries that we do not know whom to treat first,” said one ophthalmologist.Basij militia have been reportedly dragging bodies from the street and taking them to other cities for burial so there is no record, or demanding large sums — such as the one paid by the couple to see their dead daughter.
The regime forces, led by the Islamic Guard (IRGC), have been carrying out mass killings since protests escalated last Friday, when hundreds and thousands of people took to the streets of Tehran and other cities calling for an end to the Islamic rule.
The Khamenei regime wants the country to remain sealed off from the rest of the world as it quells the uprising with deadly force and covers up its crimes against the Iranian people. Tehran wants to extend the internet blackout ‘permanently,’ with media reports suggesting that it will not be easy for at least 2 more months.
“The government has not said when internet services will return, but new reports suggest that, behind the scenes, the authorities may be making plans to restrict it permanently,” the BBC reported Sunday. “On 15 January, the news website IranWire reported that government spokesperson Fatemeh Mohajerani told journalists that international web access will not be available until at least the Iranian New Year in late March.”
An Iranian human rights group estimated that some 20,000 people have been arrested as the regime paves the way for hundreds of public executions. “The U.S.-based Iranian Human Rights Activists News Agency (…) said they have confirmed 24,000 arrests,” Politico reported Sunday.
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