An ophthalmologist in Tehran has documented more than 400 eye injuries caused by gunfire in just one hospital, as overstretched medical staff struggle to treat the growing number of victims of the Iranian authorities' increasingly brutal crackdown on protests across the country, the British newspaper The Guardian reports.
Three doctors, in messages shared with the Guardian on Monday, described overcrowded hospitals and emergency rooms filled with protesters who had been hit by bullets. The medical staff said the gunshot wounds were mostly concentrated in the eyes and head of protesters - a tactic that rights groups said authorities also used during the "Women, Life, Freedom" protests in 2022.
“[Security forces] are deliberately shooting at the head and eyes. They want to damage the head and eyes so that people can no longer see, the same thing they did in 2022,” said a doctor in Tehran. He added that many patients had to have their eyes removed and were permanently blind.
Demonstrations in Iran, which began on December 28 over the sharp fall in the value of the national currency, have grown into the largest anti-government protest movement in the country since 2009. Tens of thousands of people take to the streets across the country every evening, chanting anti-government slogans such as "death to the dictator," alluding to Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
The protests have alarmed authorities, who shut down the country's internet and mobile networks on Thursday night, effectively cutting off Iranians from the rest of the world. Rights groups have accused authorities of using the media blackout to carry out a brutal crackdown on protesters.
More than 2.000 people have been killed during the protests - more than 90 percent of them protesters - and over 16.700 people have been arrested, according to the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA).
The death toll, which is expected to rise, has shocked the public. After just two weeks, it is already four times higher than during the months-long protests sparked by the death of Mahsa Amini in 2022. The government's response was already considered extremely violent at the time.
Doctors in Iran say they suspect the real death toll is much higher than the official figures, noting a sharp increase in wounded patients arriving at hospitals shortly after authorities shut down the internet on Thursday.
"It's like in war movies, where you see wounded soldiers being treated in the open field. We don't have blood, we don't have enough medical supplies. This is a war zone," said a doctor in Tehran. His colleague described how wounded protesters were treated outside, on the ground, in freezing temperatures, due to a lack of space in hospital wards.
A Tehran doctor said medical staff were working in extremely difficult conditions, as a communications blackout prevented them from contacting other doctors and emergency services. He added that security forces were occasionally raiding hospitals to arrest wounded protesters.
"My colleagues are deeply disturbed, exhausted and terrified. They are broken and crying," the doctor said. One of his colleagues, also a doctor, was wounded while traveling to the hospital after being shot by authorities.
The types of injuries recorded by medical personnel have led them to believe that authorities are deliberately targeting the eyes of protesters - a claim supported by human rights organizations. Authorities have been documented using shotguns with metal pellets, as well as rifles with live ammunition, against protesters.
"The eyes were hit with metal pellets from shotguns and it was intentional - they were shooting to kill," said a doctor in Tehran. His colleague added that "20 metal pellets" were removed from the body of one protester.
According to representatives of the American Abdorahman Boruman Center for Human Rights, demonstrators were shot in the eyes and genitals, and at least one girl is in critical condition after being shot in the pelvic area.
"Evidence shows that even when using 'less lethal' weapons, the Islamic Republic deliberately targets vital organs, turning these means into instruments of systematic mutilation and permanent disability, with the aim of intimidating protesters," the center's spokesman said.
The Iranian government has accused protesters, not its own security forces, of being behind the violence, releasing footage it says shows foreign saboteurs. Authorities have pointed to footage of protesters beating police officers, the killing of a police chief by armed members of a Sunni militant group, and the looting of mosques as evidence that the protests have turned violent.
According to HRANA, at least 135 people associated with the Iranian government were killed during the protests.
Protesters who managed to bypass the communications blockade, however, said they witnessed authorities targeting peaceful demonstrators. One 20-year-old protester said a rally he attended in Tehran on Friday quickly turned deadly after security forces intervened.
"We were just chanting 'Džavid Shah' (Long live the king), when the killers in civilian clothes entered the people a few rows in front of us and shot us at close range, from behind, directly in the head. We ran away and we don't know if they picked up the bodies of the dead," he said.
Another video, sent to the Guardian by activists in Iran, shows a protester lying on the ground, blood gushing from his mouth, after particularly violent clashes reported on Thursday in Fardis, in Alborz province, west of Tehran. “He’s not breathing! Please, hold on, I swear to God, hold on,” one protester shouts as blood continues to gushes from the wounded man’s mouth.
Despite the brutal crackdown on the protests, the demonstrations have entered their 17th day, with thousands of people filling the streets every evening.
Doctors, however, warn that while footage of the protests is making its way out of the country, the world is drastically underestimating the death toll in Iran.
"The images and data broadcast by international media do not represent even one percent of reality, because the information simply does not reach them," said a doctor who left Iran, in a statement to the US-based Center for Human Rights in Iran.
"This was a mass casualty situation. Our capacity, space and staff were far below the number of injured arriving," the doctor said, describing scenes at the hospital.
Bonus video:
