Iran may have killed 30,000 protesters in brutal 48-hour crackdown – report

Protesters gather as fires burn during demonstrations in Tehran on January 8, 2026. (Photo credit: Anonymous/Getty Images)
By Jacob Laznik, Miriam Sela-Eitam
January 25, 2026 | Updated: January 25, 2026, 16:42
If these figures are confirmed, historians say the only comparable mass killing recorded in global databases would be the Babyn Yar massacre of 1941, where about 33,000 Jews were murdered outside Kyiv during the Holocaust.

Up to 30,000 people may have been killed across Iran during a sweeping two-day security crackdown on January 8 and 9, according to a report by TIME magazine. The publication cited two senior officials from Iran’s Health Ministry and a separate compilation of hospital records shared with its reporters. The figures have not been independently verified and are far higher than numbers officially acknowledged by Iranian authorities.
If accurate, the estimate would represent a dramatic rise from earlier death tolls. Shortly after the alleged massacre, Iran International had put the number of fatalities at roughly 12,000 for the same two-day period.
According to the officials, the scale of the killings overwhelmed mortuary capacity, leading to shortages of body bags and forcing authorities to use large eighteen-wheel trailers to transport corpses. TIME reported that security forces deployed rooftop snipers and trucks fitted with heavy machine guns after cutting off communications nationwide. An official of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps was quoted on state television as warning that anyone who took to the streets should not complain if they were shot.
Hospital-based data shared with TIME indicated 30,304 deaths as of Friday, January 9, according to Dr. Amir Parasta, a German-Iranian ophthalmologist who helped compile the figures. “We are approaching the reality,” he said, while noting that the count likely excludes casualties from military hospitals and inaccessible regions. Public health experts quoted by TIME cautioned against drawing absolute conclusions from hospital data alone but said the figures suggest a mass killing over a very short period.
If confirmed, Iran killings rival Holocaust-era Babyn Yar massacre
Analysts struggled to identify historical precedents for such a large number of people being shot dead within 48 hours. TIME noted that the closest parallel in online mass-killing databases was the execution of approximately 33,000 Jews at Babyn Yar on September 29–30, 1941.
Official Iranian figures said to downplay scale of deaths
The internal two-day death toll described to TIME far exceeds the official figure of 3,117 announced on January 21 by hardline authorities reporting directly to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
While the actual number of casualties remains uncertain, the US-based Iranian human rights group HRANA had confirmed 5,459 deaths as of Saturday and was reviewing more than 17,000 additional reported cases.
On Sunday, Iran International estimated that at least 36,500 people have been killed by the Iranian regime since protests began, citing fresh documentation and eyewitness accounts from medical workers, bereaved families, and other sources.
The Daily Mail, referencing Iranian-German academic Professor Amir-Mobarez Parasta, reported similar findings, suggesting the death toll may have surpassed 33,000, with about 97,645 people injured.
Both Iran International and Parasta reported that the regime has allegedly begun carrying out executions across various parts of the country.
Some victims were reportedly shot in the head after being admitted to hospitals for treatment, according to images from local morgues reviewed by Iran International. Medical staff also told the outlet that “fatal shots were fired at the injured.”
Accounts collected by TIME highlighted how the nationwide internet blackout obscured the true scale of the killings, with images and information leaking out only through illegal satellite connections. Early in the unrest, authorities imposed an almost total shutdown of internet access across Iran.
Soon after, hospitals in Tehran were flooded with the wounded and the dead, while families were left unable to confirm the fate of loved ones due to the digital blackout.
The crackdown coincided with calls by opposition figures for mass demonstrations. Throughout the protests, appeals for unity from Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi circulated widely.
International bodies have since taken steps to address the alleged abuses, with the UN Human Rights Council extending an independent investigation into the violence.
“The 30,000 confirmed deaths are almost certainly an undercount,” Columbia University researcher Les Roberts told TIME, noting that crisis mortality assessments often miss victims who never reach hospitals or are buried outside official systems.
Paul B. Spiegel of Johns Hopkins University commended the rapid compilation of hospital data under dangerous conditions but warned that intimidation, disrupted record-keeping, and parallel military medical systems could distort totals. Both experts said only full transparency—covering hospital records, civil registries, and burial data—would reveal the true scale of the deaths.
“According to Israeli officials, the night of January 8 was the deadliest in the history of the Islamic Republic and among the deadliest globally in decades,” N12 News correspondent Amit Segal wrote on X on Sunday.
“The regime killed thousands—possibly tens of thousands,” he said. “A massacre of almost unimaginable proportions.”
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