Horrific new photos show brutality of Iran’s protest crackdown as death toll feared to reach 20K: reports

Leaked photos from an Iranian mortuary show the battered and swollen faces of at least 326 victims, including 18 women, who were killed during the bloody crackdown on protesters — with a United Nations human rights expert warning that the total death toll may exceed 20,000.

Verified pictures from the Kahrizak Forensic Medical Center in Tehran show the individual bodies of the brutalized citizens, whose ages ranged from 12 to 70 years old, the BBC reported.

The images were taken so the dead could be identified by their families, with many relatives finding it difficult to clearly identify them due to the graphic injuries.

One man could be seen with a face so swollen that his eyes were barely visible, with another suffering a clear gunshot wound to the middle of his head.

There was also a picture of a man with a breathing tube still in his mouth, suggesting he died after receiving treatment at a local hospital.

Many of the mutilated bodies were presented with a bank card laid on top of their body bags, which was often the only way to identify them, according to the BBC.

Sources who provided the detailed pictures of the bodies claimed that there were thousands of corpses being held at the mortuary, which was quickly overwhelmed by the scale of the dead.

They also noted that many of the families would drop to the ground or scream in agony once they saw the state of their murdered loved ones.

“It was just too much,” they told the UK outlet of the verification process.

The haunting images were released despite the nationwide internet blackout in Iran, which has made it difficult to fully verify the details of the regime’s brutal crackdown on protesters.

After days of silence, Tehran now claims that only 3,117 people died during the protests, of which 2,427 were considered “innocent,” according to Iran’s National Security Council.

Here is the latest on the civil unrest in Iran:

• Iranian foreign minister claims Israeli spies incited ‘maximum bloodshed’ during protests to get US involved
• Iran security forces killed innocent bystanders during protests, witnesses say
• Tehran streets hit with heavy machine gun fire from militias in deadly night attacks
• Top Iran diplomat vows to ‘fire back with everything we have’ if US attacks

The estimates did not provide a detailed breakdown of the dead, nor did it refer to any civilians killed in the protests, saying only that the “innocent” included members of Iran’s security forces.

The government’s numbers fall short of the numbers being verified by human rights groups in Iran, with the latest estimates finding 4,902 deaths as a result of the protests, according to the US-based Human Rights Activist News Agency.

Mai Sato, the UN’s special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran, however, warned that the true death toll could be 20,000 or more, the Australia Broadcasting Corporation reported.

“I would put the minimum estimates… to be 5,000-plus and that’s sort of the more conservative organizations reporting that figure,” she told the outlet.

“I’ve also received reports up to 20,000 — they have been largely through courageous doctors with access to Starlink being able to provide information of people who they’ve received in hospital,” she added.

“I think the actual number, once we have more information, will be significantly higher.” 

Sato also said the UN needed to investigate potential crimes against humanity at the hands of the regime.

“I think what we are seeing is extremely serious and after that I think the fact-finding mission, which is already in place, will be best placed to investigate that,” she said.