Iran remains largely cut off from the internet as uncertainty deepens over the scale of killings during nationwide protests against the Islamic Republic, with estimates ranging from just over 3,000 to tens of thousands.
Iran’s government has put the death toll at 3,117 — the first official figure it has released — while opposition groups have issued far higher claims. The International Center for Human Rights Violations in Iran, an opposition-linked organization, has said as many as 43,000 people were killed, a number that could not be independently verified. Other rights groups and international officials have offered estimates that fall between those figures, but even the lowest assessments would mark the deadliest protest crackdown in Iran’s history.
Disturbing video from Iran shows father searching for son among bodies in Tehran | Content warning
The violence unfolded despite repeated warnings from U.S. President Donald Trump, who cautioned Tehran against killing protesters and publicly encouraged Iranians to take to the streets.
With Iran’s internet blackout now stretching beyond two weeks, only sporadic footage has emerged from inside the country, offering rare glimpses of events on the ground. One newly circulated video, more than 12 minutes long and shared Friday, shows a distraught father walking through streets and compounds filled with bodies wrapped in black bags, searching for his missing son.
“Where are you, my son?” the man can be heard crying, as other parents wail nearby over the bodies of their children or search for loved ones. Addressing Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the man says: “Look what you’ve done to these children. There are women here too.”
The footage was filmed near the Kahrizak forensic institute south of Tehran, where bodies of those killed in the capital’s protests were brought by trucks days after what activists described as a massacre in the city. Families were told to search through piles of bodies to identify relatives, according to accounts accompanying the video. The father in the footage does not appear to find his son but records the faces of multiple victims.
Iranian authorities have continued to portray the protesters as “rioters” and “lawbreakers,” accusing them of collaborating with the United States and Israel. On Friday, as the country marked what it calls Revolutionary Guards Day, the Guards issued a statement claiming recent unrest was part of an extension of a “12-day war” orchestrated by hostile intelligence services.
The Guards said they had arrested or summoned 735 people linked to what they described as terrorist networks, seized 743 unlicensed weapons and identified 46 individuals accused of cooperating with foreign intelligence agencies. The claims could not be independently verified.
The unrest has also drawn international attention following reports that an Iranian soldier was sentenced to death for refusing to fire on protesters. The U.S. State Department condemned the reported sentence, calling the punishment “inhumane” and praising the soldier’s refusal as a moral act.