Protesters in Tehran describe seeing ‘bodies piled up’ in hospitals after crackdown by authorities

By Catherine Nicholls, Billy Stockwell, Caitlin Danaher, CNN

(CNN) — Several people who protested in Iran over the past few days have spoken to CNN about seeing enormous crowds as well as brutal violence on the streets of Tehran, with one woman saying she saw “bodies piled up on each other” in a hospital.

A woman in her mid-60s and a 70-year-old man described seeing people of all ages out in the streets of the Iranian capital on Thursday and Friday. On Friday night, however, security forces brandishing military rifles killed “many people,” they said speaking on the condition of anonymity for security reasons.

The protests, which began on December 28 as demonstrations in Tehran’s bazaars over rampant inflation, have since spread to more than 100 cities, posing the biggest challenge to the Iranian regime in years.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Saturday that the United States supports the people of Iran after President Donald Trump reiterated his threat on Friday to attack Iran if security forces killed protesters.

Providing rare insight into the nature of the protests amid an ongoing internet shutdown, demonstrators in a different neighborhood of Tehran told CNN that they helped a man in his mid-60s who had been severely injured in the crackdown. He had around 40 pellets lodged in his legs and had a broken arm, they said.

They tried to get the man medical help at several different hospitals, but said that the situation was “completely chaotic.”

Other protesters told CNN that the number of people out on the streets was incomparable to anything they had ever experienced before, describing the scenes as “unbelievably beautiful and hopeful.”

A televised speech by the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, on Friday night changed this atmosphere. Shortly afterwards, the crackdown turned incredibly violent, the protesters said.

“Sadly, we may have to accept the reality that this regime will not step down defeated without external force,” one protester told CNN.

At least 65 people have died and more than 2,300 have been arrested across the country in the past 13 days during the unrest, according to the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA). This figure could be much higher as HRANA said it is not possible to establish an exact death toll due to the internet blackout.

The agency, which advocates for human rights issues in Iran, said in an update Friday that protests have been recorded at 512 locations across 180 cities.

It said that 50 of those killed were protesters, 14 were law enforcement officials or security forces and one was a “government-affiliated civilian.”

On Saturday, 100 people were arrested in the Iranian county of Baharestan near Tehran for disrupting public order and leading “riots,” a local official told the semi-official news agency Tasnim.

CNN could not independently verify the numbers of those killed or arrested.

Internet blackout backfired, resident says

One resident in Tehran told CNN on Saturday how the blackout has galvanized more people to join the anti-regime protests sweeping the country.

“The internet shutdown appears to have backfired, as boredom and frustration drove even more people into the streets,” said a 47-year-old man from the Iranian capital, speaking on the condition of anonymity for security reasons.

“People of all ages – men, women and children – participate, chanting from windows and gathering in large numbers,” he said.

The resident explained how citizens have been waiting for the cover of darkness to take to the streets in Iran’s larger cities. He described a sense of “unstoppable momentum” as the protests intensify.

While the protests were initially triggered by concerns over inflation, the resident said the price of everyday goods has continued to rise in the wake of the political unrest, with basics such as eggs and milk becoming “significantly more expensive.”

The head of the Iranian Army, Amir Hatami, in a statement shared with the state media, urged the Iranian people on Saturday to “remain vigilant” and called for unity and national cohesion to “prevent the enemy from achieving its malicious goals.”

Khamenei has continued to post on social media despite the blackout, using the platform X to brand protesters “a bunch of people bent on destruction” and criticize Trump on Friday.

Doug Madory, an expert who studies internet disruptions, told CNN Saturday that even though the authorities have disabled communications, Iran is “technically connected to the internet.”

“So, if they wanted to turn something back on, they could do that for any person or any particular internet connection,” Madory said.

“We can see a small trickle of traffic coming out. So, there is some. It’s very small, but it’s not zero. It’s probably some high value people who have maintained connectivity.”

CNN’s Laura Sharman contributed to this report.

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