THE NEW YORK TIMES: As many as 3,000 feared dead as witnesses describe government forces firing on unarmed protesters.
As the Iranian authorities impose a near-total communication blackout on a country convulsed by mass protests, videos and witness accounts slowly emerging suggest that the government is waging one of its deadliest crackdowns on unrest in more than a decade.
Eyewitnesses say government forces have begun opening fire, apparently with automatic weapons and at times seemingly indiscriminately, on unarmed protesters. Hospital workers say protesters had been coming in with pellet injuries but now arrive with gunshot wounds and skull fractures. One doctor called it a “mass-casualty situation.”
Despite the communications blockade, a recurring image has made its way out of Iran: rows and rows of body bags.
In videos uploaded by opposition activists on social media, families can be seen sobbing as they huddle together over bloodied corpses in unzipped bags. And in footage aired on Iranian state television, a morgue official, sheathed in blue scrubs, stands amid bags neatly arranged along the floor of a white room, under glaring fluorescent lights. » | Erika Solomon, Farnaz Fassihi, Sanam Mahoozi and Sanjana Varghese | Tuesday, January 13, 2026
