What is not disputed is that the Iranian regime committed a horrific massacre against protesters on January 8 and 9, amid the popular uprising that has been sweeping Iranian cities since December 27. What remains challenged, however, is the final death toll of those killed by security forces’ gunfire during those two particularly bloody days.
According to figures cited in circulating reports, the preliminary estimates of the number of dead vary sharply from one source to another, depending on each source’s proximity to the regime or to the protesters. Yet information from hospitals, eyewitnesses, and journalists indicates that the death toll in major cities such as Tehran, Rasht, Isfahan, and Mashhad is shocking and far higher than what official government reports acknowledge. The coming days may reveal that it is also significantly higher than what non-governmental reports, even the less accurate ones, have suggested.
Eyewitnesses say the number of bodies was so large that police and ambulance crews were exhausted from carrying them. Black body bags reportedly ran out in storage facilities, forcing security forces to use trucks to transport the dead to military and public hospitals, forensic morgues, and cemeteries.
The “Great Massacre” and “Bloody January” are the terms Iranians use to describe what happened. The killings unfolded over just 48 hours, coinciding with the peak of the popular uprising. At that moment, the regime severed the country’s connection to the outside world by completely shutting down the internet, then proceeded to carry out its crime in secrecy.
Millions were protesting in the streets when the total blackout took effect. Soon after, masked snipers positioned on rooftops and on military vehicles equipped with machine guns opened fire. Others infiltrated the demonstrations, shooting directly at eyes, faces, and hearts. Thousands were killed in a very short span of time.
Thousands more lost their lives after being prevented from reaching medical centers, as security forces tightened their control over rescue operations. Hospitals were turned into confrontation zones, mirroring the streets. Security forces raided several facilities, stormed operating rooms and intensive care units, and abducted wounded protesters. When those sought were not found, doctors and paramedics were arrested instead, accused of “saving terrorists.” Paramedics who treated the injured in their homes were also detained, as were others who had turned their houses into makeshift field hospitals.
The staggering number of dead transformed Tehran’s sidewalks into piles of stacked bodies. One eyewitness said that in his Tehran neighborhood, there was not a single household that had not lost a loved one. In the northern city of Rasht, the main market witnessed a horrific inferno after security forces surrounded protesters inside and set it on fire. Some demonstrators had taken refuge there to escape live ammunition. In remote areas, killings took place without witnesses.
The crime did not end there. With Iran still cut off from the world, its chapters continue to unfold: through rapid executions issued arbitrarily and without trials; through ongoing abductions and raids carried out day and night; and through the concealment of victims’ bodies, disposed of in mass graves.
As for the conflicting reports, some sources estimate the death toll at 5,000, while others speak of 36,000 killed. All sources, however, agree that the violence of this scale and brutality is nearly unprecedented in the history of popular protests worldwide. It cannot be justified by claims of infiltrators among protesters, nor by fears of a return to monarchical rule in Iran, nor by references to former US President Donald Trump’s threats and what are described as his “trivial” promises of support, nor even by the fact that some protesters burned government institutions.
In a statement based on documents and eyewitness testimonies from the heart of the uprising, the website Iran International announced that more than 36,500 people were killed during the massacre carried out by the Iranian regime on January 8 and 9. It claimed to have obtained reports from within the regime itself acknowledging that the initial death toll was no fewer than 12,000. Another report, it said, reached the National Security and Foreign Policy Committee of the Iranian parliament, indicating that at least 27,500 people were killed.
Human Rights Watch documented the killing of 5,459 people. Meanwhile, a report published last Sunday by Time magazine, citing a source in Iran’s Ministry of Health, revealed that up to 30,000 people may have been killed across Iranian cities on January 8 and 9. According to the latest data from the human rights-focused Hrana news agency, 5,848 killings have been documented so far, including 5,520 adult men and women, 77 children under the age of 18, 209 members of the security forces, and 42 non-protesting civilians. A total of 17,091 cases remain under investigation, and 7,804 people were reported to have suffered serious injuries.
Amnesty International described the events of those two days as “an unprecedented massacre and one of the bloodiest crackdowns it has ever documented, in Iran or anywhere in the world.” Based on evidence gathered by a team of 20 digital verification specialists, Amnesty confirmed “the widespread use of military-grade weapons by security forces and the Revolutionary Guard against unarmed protesters, with deliberate targeting of the head and chest.” Dozens of eyewitness testimonies, images, and videos analyzed and reviewed also showed “snipers firing directly at protesters from elevated positions, including mosque rooftops, residential buildings, and police stations.” The UN Special Rapporteur on Iran, Mai Sato Rahman, had previously revealed that the number of people killed in Iran’s massive protests could exceed 20,000.
In contrast to all of this, Iran’s Interior Ministry announced in an official statement that the death toll stood at just 3,117, the majority of whom it claimed were security personnel.
Beyond the “Great Massacre,” other dimensions of systematic violence emerged during those two bloody days, most notably the deliberate targeting of protesters’ eyes with live ammunition. Medical reports and documented testimonies indicate that a large number of demonstrators suffered severe eye injuries, in some cases requiring surgical removal, as well as fractures to the skull and frontal facial bones.
Within a single hour on the first day of the massacre, Farabi Eye Hospital in Tehran received 55 cases of gunshot wounds to the eyes. By the following day, the number had risen to 1,000. The hospital was forced to borrow stretchers, place the wounded in corridors, and transfer patients to other facilities after reaching the limits of its capacity.
It is not an exaggeration to describe the internet shutdown itself as another form of violence deployed by the regime during those two bloody days. By cutting connectivity, authorities were able to block news, restrict information, control its flow, and obstruct the transmission and documentation of the massacre, the scale of violence, and the arrests. The blackout also disrupted coordination among protesters, undermined their ability to organize demonstrations, and even hindered attempts at survival. The current partial restoration of internet access is merely a continuation of this violence in a more concealed form: communication with the outside world remains limited to unstable, short connections that do not exceed 20 minutes per day. As a result, some Iranians have resorted to using VPNs, though this measure is far from fully secure.
According to reports from inside Iran, the regime has launched a new wave of violence no less terrifying than the “Great Massacre,” carrying out a series of raids and abductions targeting citizens who participated in the protests, as well as their families. At the same time, security agencies have been releasing video recordings of forced confessions in which detainees claim they received orders from abroad to carry out acts of unrest. Other reports have cited threats by government officials to confiscate the property of protesters accused of damaging public property.
Despite the “Great Massacre” that marked “Bloody January,” a broad segment of Iranian opposition figures insist that the regime’s brutal repression will only deepen the Iranian people’s determination to rise up. They describe a free and dynamic society that does not submit to silence, is not subdued by injustice, is not deterred by killing, and retreats only to prepare for a renewed offensive. “Bloody January,” they argue, is merely another chapter in a struggle that has continued for more than four decades. Attempts to frame the uprising as an act of collaboration with Israel or the United States are, in their view, nothing more than the product of a convergence of interests between two of their enemies: the regime and the United States.
Iranian cities these days resemble open graveyards. Time there is measured in burying the dead, in mourning, and in bracing for yet another massacre. Survivors of the “Great Massacre” are now preparing to try to survive a war whose scale of violence they cannot yet grasp, after Trump moved his fleets toward the region. According to reliable sources, Tehran has already begun to witness a modest wave of displacement toward rural areas.
