“They brought an old woman to Fayaz-Bakhsh Hospital who was shot in the heart while she was looking out of the window,” one doctor said, as Islamic Republic officials continue to remain silent about the number of people who have died during the recent nationwide protests.
The doctor is among a group of medics who refer to themselves as “Anonymous Doctors for Human Rights” and who work in Iranian hospitals across the country. The group, whose identities have been verified by IranWire, have been reporting on the situation in various hospitals since the protests began. They say that, in crushing the protests, authorities used both military ammunition and pellet shots – and they were mostly targeted at the protesters’ heads and hearts.
“It seems as though they were only shooting to kill,” one of the doctors says. “They even shot at those who were looking from the roofs or from windows, like the old woman who was taken to a hospital in Tehran and who was shot in the heart.”
A number of these doctors, most of whom work in hospitals in and around Tehran, have gathered their own statistics on the number of protesters killed in the first three days of the protests, from Saturday, November 16 to Monday, November 18. According to these statistics, over the three days, 104 people died in hospitals associated with the Social Security Organization in Tehran and the surrounding areas. Their figures are as follows:
- Shahriar Social Security Hospital: 15
- Shahriar Sajjad Hospital: 36
- Fayaz-Bakhsh Hospital: 14
- Islamshahr: 9
- Robat Karim: 10
- Qods (Ghaleh Hasan Khan): 20
“In just one shift, I saw with my own eyes 12 people who were killed, and 10 of them had been shot in the head,” says one doctor who works at a hospital in the town of Qods. “One was shot in the heart and the other one in his throat.” According to the doctor, the protests in cities around Tehran and Karaj, including Shahriar and Qods, and in all towns from Tehran to Karaj, had been crushed with extreme violence.
The doctors also said that in the first three days of protests, 16 people had died in three hospitals in the western city of Kermanshah: “Eight in Taleghani Hospital, three in Imam Reza Hospital and five in Imam Khomeini Hospital. These figures do not include hospitals that belong to the army, the Revolutionary Guards and the police,” their reports said.
According to the doctors IranWire spoke to, the hospitals run by Iran University Medical Sciences in the areas of Tehran, Shahriar and Robat Karim reported that 64 people had been killed and more than 600 were wounded.
“There were many injuries caused by pellet shots,” one of the doctors told IranWire. “We X-rayed them and if the pellets had not reached the bones we released them and told them to go to a surgeon later and have the pellets removed because if the pellet is lodged in soft tissues its only danger is infection in those tissues, and we treated them with antibiotics.”
The doctors also said that more than 30 people had been killed in Javanrud in Kermanshah Province, in Bukan in West Azerbaijan and in Marivan in Kurdistan: “15 in Javanrud, at least 10 in Marivan and at least seven in Bukan,” the report read.
“The repression was more violent than what you have heard or seen before,” one of the doctors told IranWire. “The order to kill was issued on the very first day and that is why they targeted the heads and the hearts of the protesters.”
Related Coverage:
Uncle of Young Man Killed in Protests: We were Forced to Bury Him at Night, 28 November 2019
Security Forces Attacked Isfahan and then Blamed the Locals, 27 November 2019
Security Forces Kill a 13-Year-Old Bystander, 26 November 2019
Government Source: 218 Dead and 4,523 Arrested in Iran Protests, 25 November 2019
She was Helping the Injured When They Killed Her, 25 November 2019
The Names of the Dead, 23 November 2019
He was Unemployed. He Protested. They Murdered him, 22 November 2019
Shutting Down the Internet to Get Away with Murder, 19 November 2019
Twenty Dead as Shots Fired From Friday Imam’s Helicopter, 19 November 2019
Iranian Kurdish City Under Siege and Family of the Dead Ordered to be Silent, 18 November 2019
Murder and Mass Arrests to Silence Behbahan Protesters, 18 November 2019
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