Death toll in Iran protest crackdown said to pass 115; Trump reportedly considering strike |
Nationwide protests challenging Iran’s theocracy reached the two-week mark Sunday, as the death toll in the brutal crackdown rose to at least 116 people killed, activists said. Some Iranian opposition groups said the death toll appeared to be much higher.
With the internet down in Iran and phone lines cut off, gauging the demonstrations from abroad has grown more difficult.
Monitor NetBlocks said there has been virtually no connectivity since Thursday, over 60 hours earlier. Images and footage from Saturday appeared to show that street lighting was switched off in some areas where protesters gathered.
But the death toll in the deadly crackdown has grown to at least 116 and over 2,600 others detained, according to the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency. The agency has been accurate in multiple rounds of previous unrest in Iran.
Anti-regime outlet Iran International said “estimates indicate” that 2,000 people were killed in a 48-hour period. The toll was significantly higher than those reported by other groups, but other accounts also indicated that lethal force was being used against protesters at alarming rates as officials indicated they would escalate efforts to crack down on the demonstrations.
Staff at three hospitals in Iran told the BBC that their medical facilities were overwhelmed with people killed or wounded during the protests.
A medic at a Tehran hospital told the British broadcaster there were “direct shots to the heads of the young people, to their hearts as well.”
A hospital worker in Tehran said the number of protesters killed was so high that the hospitals were struggling to cope, often unable to even give CPR to the mainly young victims.
“The number was so large that there wasn’t enough space in the morgue; the bodies were placed on top of one another,” she........