Iranian authorities have plunged the country into what witnesses describe as a near-total digital blackout in response to deadly nationwide protests against the Islamic republic, sharply limiting the flow of information from inside the country.
With internet access severely restricted, only fragmented accounts have reached the outside world through brief one-way phone calls, individuals with satellite internet access, and Iranians who have recently left the country.
The protests erupted in late December 2025 amid mounting public anger over economic hardship, soaring inflation, and the sharp depreciation of the Iranian rial. Initial demonstrations over living costs and economic mismanagement quickly spread to multiple cities and evolved into broader antiestablishment protests, prompting a deadly security response.
Human rights organizations say several thousand people have been killed or injured during the unrest, though independent verification remains impossible due to the blackout. Eyewitnesses and medical professionals speaking to RFE/RL's Radio Farda describe hospitals overwhelmed by patients suffering from severe gunshot wounds, particularly to the head, eyes, chest, and abdomen.
One protester from the northeastern city of Mashhad who recently fled Iran said he witnessed security forces violently confronting teenagers during demonstrations. The protester described one teenager suffering severe facial injuries after being struck with batons, while another was shot in the leg and later required amputation.
Hospitals Overwhelmed
Some witnesses also described signs of violence visible in public spaces after demonstrations ended. “The next morning in Haft-e Tir, all the streets were being washed,” another Mashhad resident who recently left Iran told Radio Farda. “My spouse had seen it; everything was covered in blood.”
Health-care workers inside Iran report extreme pressure on medical facilities. In one recorded account, a member of the medical staff described an acute shortage of specialists, including neurosurgeons, orthopedic surgeons, and ophthalmologists, as patients arrived with shotgun pellet wounds, particularly to the head and face.
Radio Farda cannot independently verify casualty figures or individual claims. However, doctors inside and outside Iran say the scale and pattern of injuries suggest widespread use of live ammunition and pellet guns.
Shahram Kordasti, director of research at King’s College London’s Faculty of Oncology and Pharmaceutical Sciences, said colleagues in Iran reported an unusually high number of eye and head injuries.
“The volume was so large that specialized eye hospitals could no longer cope,” he said, adding that shortages of medical supplies and difficulties reaching hospitals had worsened the crisis.
Hospitals are also facing severe blood shortages. Roozbeh Esfandiari, a former emergency physician in Tehran now based in the United States, urged Iranians with O-positive and O-negative blood types to donate blood urgently.
Iranian newspapers have published limited but troubling reports. Tehran-based daily Ham-Mihan reported that the brother of a 30-year-old protester said the man was alive and speaking in the hospital before suddenly collapsing and dying from a gunshot wound to the lower abdomen. Another witness told Radio Farda that a man was killed by multiple bullets while trying to rescue a wounded friend and that the family was forced to pay a large sum to retrieve the body.
Eye Injuries
The Iranian daily Shargh reported that eye injuries make up a significant share of protest-related casualties. Tehran’s Farabi Eye Hospital, the country’s main ophthalmology center, has reportedly been operating at full capacity.
Amir-Mobarez Parasta, head of the Munich Eye Center, told Radio Farda that injury figures were unprecedented. “I am in contact with ophthalmologists inside Iran,” he said. “In just one private eye clinic in Tehran, 6,000 eye injuries have been recorded so far. University hospitals across major cities such as Tehran, Mashhad, Shiraz, and Tabriz have collectively documented at least 600 cases involving eye removal.”
Eyewitnesses and medical staff also reported a heavy security presence at hospitals, with armed forces restricting access and, in some cases, detaining patients before treatment was completed.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi acknowledged on January 11 that some wounded individuals had been "finished off" by what he called “terrorists,” not security forces.
Doctors warn that many injured protesters remain in hiding, avoiding hospitals out of fear of arrest. Untreated gunshot wounds and infections, they say, place these individuals at serious risk of death as Iran remains largely cut off from the outside world.
