A week ago, Kiarash stood inside a warehouse where the bodies of those killed in protests were being stored. As security guards watched on, he searched through the dead.
In an interview with Sky News after fleeing Iran, he described searching for the body of his sister-in-law’s friend, a young woman shot through the neck at a protest.
Among thousands of victims, many stacked on top of each other, he found her.
“There were so many children there,” he said. “They were in small bags – thrown between two warehouses.”
He described a mother who found her child among the bodies. “She was shouting ‘this is my baby…please don’t touch her'”.
Kiarash went to a protest the next day, where he narrowly escaped being shot himself.
“The people are asking for what they want,” he said. “But no one is listening to them. They are replying with bullets, with heavy machine guns.”
A government-imposed internet blackout has made it almost impossible to see the full scale of what is happening inside Iran. But Kiarash’s testimony is a rare glimpse into the violence unfolding.
Searching for the dead
Human rights organisations estimate that thousands have died, with some of the dead being verified through videos from morgues like the one Kiarash visited – showing hundreds of body bags, some with names written on them.
Sky News’ Data and Forensics team has used these videos, along with reports on social media, information from human rights agencies and interviews with family members to verify deaths.
We have compiled a list of around 200 names, and verified over 100, allowing us to learn about the lives of people killed in the uprising.
Most of the deaths we have verified happened on 8 January – the day the internet was shut off. And people have been killed at protests all over the country.
This is only a small snapshot, but in the absence of official information, it provides clues about the crackdown on the protesters and what happened to the victims.
