Several protesters in Iran in recent days told CNN there were large crowds and brutal violence on the streets of Tehran, and one woman said she saw “bodies folded on top of each other” in a hospital.
A woman in her mid-60s and a 70-year-old man said they saw people of all ages on the streets of the Iranian capital on Thursday and Friday. But on Friday night, security forces brandished military-style rifles and “many people” were killed, said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity for security reasons.
The riots began on December 28 as demonstrations in Tehran’s bazaar over rampant inflation and have since spread to more than 100 cities, posing the biggest challenge for the Iranian regime in years.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Saturday that the United States stands with the Iranian people, after President Donald Trump repeated his threat on Friday to attack Iran if its security forces kill protesters.
Demonstrators in another part of Tehran provided valuable insight into the nature of the protests amid the ongoing internet shutdown, telling CNN they helped a man in his mid-60s who was seriously injured in the crackdown. He had about 40 pellets stuck in his leg and his arm was broken.
They tried to get the man to see several hospitals, but said the situation was “completely chaotic”.
Other protesters told CNN that the number of people taking to the streets was unprecedented, calling the scene “incredibly beautiful and hopeful.”
A televised speech by the country’s supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei on Friday night changed the mood. Immediately afterward, protesters said, the crackdown became extremely violent.
“Unfortunately, this government may have to accept the reality that it will not step down even if it loses, unless there is an outside force,” one protester told CNN.
Interior Minister Eskandar Momeni acknowledged “some shortcomings” on Saturday, but told state television that Iranians had a “better economic future” ahead of them.
An Iranian social worker who took part in protests in Tehran on Friday said the situation had worsened into a “nightmare” as authorities attacked demonstrators.
“They’re going to fire bullets, tear gas, anything you can think of,” she said. “And it was very scary.”
She said she witnessed a girl being shocked with an electric device in the neck “until she passed out” and that a co-worker’s son was among those killed.
Iranian medical officials and witnesses described other dire situations to the pro-reform news outlet IranWire.
Medical staff were treating a woman who had been shot in the head in the southern city of Shiraz on Friday.
“I have never seen anything like this in my life,” one of the medical workers was heard saying in a video shared on IranWire. “Shameless people shot (her) in the head and neck. Do you know how many patients there are so far?”
A doctor in the eastern city of Neyshabur said security forces fired at protesters from the top of a building on Friday. According to doctors, a family of six passing by was shot, as was an elderly female nurse who was on her way home.
Security forces opened fire on people in Najafabad on Thursday and the injured were taken to Montazeri Hospital, according to Najafabad medical sources.
“People rushed to the hospital to collect the bodies of their children, took their children and dressed them in the same clothes and buried them,” a medical source said. In Iranian Islamic culture, bodies are usually washed and covered with white cotton cloth before burial.
Mohammad Resampezeshki, a Tehran-trained Chicago doctor, told CNN that his friends who work in Iranian hospitals are being overwhelmed as more protesters are injured in the crackdown.
“One orthopedic surgeon said there were multiple bodies in the ED (emergency department) and at least 30 people who had been shot in the limbs,” Lesampezeshki said.
Friends also said that Tehran’s Farabi Eye Hospital had seen a particular spike in patients with pellets stuck in their eyes, with about 200 to 300 patients.
The US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) estimated on Saturday that at least 78 protesters have been killed in connection with the demonstrations in the past 14 days.
A total of at least 116 people, including 38 security personnel, were killed in the protests, Iran-based rights groups said in a news release.
At least seven of the slain protesters were under the age of 18, HRANA said. The group also reported that at least 2,638 people had been arrested.
“Based on aggregated data up to the end of the 14th day, 574 protest locations have been identified in 185 cities across all 31 states of the country,” the group said. The number of locations is the cumulative total since the protests began on December 28th.
CNN has reached out to Washington’s Office of Iranian Interests and Iran’s Foreign Ministry for comment.
On Saturday, 100 people were arrested for disturbing public order and leading a “riot” in Baharestan province near Tehran, local officials told the semi-state news agency Tasnim.
CNN could not independently confirm the number of people killed or arrested.
One Tehran resident told CNN on Saturday whether the power outage had inspired more people to join anti-regime demonstrations sweeping the country.
“The internet shutdown seems to have backfired as more people took to the streets out of boredom and frustration,” said a 47-year-old resident of Iran’s capital, speaking on condition of anonymity for security reasons.
“People of all ages participate, men, women and children, and they gather in large numbers to shout out their windows.”
The resident explained how the public was waiting for darkness to descend on the streets of Iran’s big cities. He said there was a sense of “unstoppable momentum” as the protests intensified.
The protests were initially sparked by concerns about inflation, but residents said the price of everyday goods continued to rise amid political unrest, making essentials such as eggs and milk “significantly more expensive.”
Iranian military commander Amir Khatami, in a statement shared with state media on Saturday, urged Iranians to “remain vigilant” and called for unity and national unity to “prevent the enemy from achieving its malign objectives.”
Khamenei continued to post on social media despite the power outage, using Platform X on Friday to brand the protesters a “group bent on destruction” and criticize President Trump.
Doug Madley, an expert who studies internet outages, told CNN on Saturday that Iran is “technically connected to the internet” despite authorities cutting off communications.
“So if you want to turn something back on, anyone can do it, even with a given Internet connection,” Madley said.
“We’re seeing traffic trickling out. So there’s some traffic. Very small, but not zero. It’s probably some high-value people who are staying connected.”
CNN’s Laura Sherman, Max Saltman, Jomana Karadsheh and Hira Humayun contributed to this report.
