If the estimates are true, the only comparable massacre in history databases would be the murder of 33,000 Jews in the Babyn Yar massacre during the Holocaust outside of Kyiv in 1941.
As many as 30,000 people may have been killed across Iran during a two-day crackdown on January 8 and 9, TIME reported on Sunday, citing two senior Health Ministry officials and a separate compilation of hospital data shared with the publication. The figures have not been independently verified and far exceed numbers publicly cited by authorities.
The number, if true, would massively increase the death toll from previously believed estimates. Days after the alleged massacre, Iran International estimated around 12,000 deaths from the two-day period.
The officials said the scale of killing overwhelmed the capacity to handle the dead, exhausting body bag stocks, and prompting the use of eighteen-wheeled trailers to move bodies. TIME reported that security forces used rooftop snipers and trucks mounted with heavy machine guns after authorities cut communications. An Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps official warned on state television that anyone entering the streets should not complain if a bullet hit them, according to the report.
A hospital-based count shared with TIME listed 30,304 deaths as of Friday, January 9, said Dr. Amir Parasta, a German-Iranian ophthalmologist who compiled the data. “We are getting closer to reality,” he said, while adding that the tally likely excludes cases from military hospitals and unreachable areas. Public health specialists quoted by TIME cautioned against over-extrapolating from hospital records but said the internal figures point to mass killing over a short period.
If numbers are accurate, massacre in Iran parallels Holocaust’s Babyn Yar
Experts struggled to find historical parallels for so many people shot to death in such a brief span. TIME noted that the only comparable event in online mass killing databases involved the execution by gunfire of some 33,000 Jews during the Holocaust at Babyn Yar outside Kyiv on September 29 and 30, 1941.
Members of the Iranian police attend a pro-government rally in Tehran, Iran, January 12, 2026. (credit: STRINGER/WANA (WEST ASIA NEWS AGENCY) VIA REUTERS ATTENTION EDITORS)
Iran’s Islamic Regime death toll numbers mitigate truth, impact of massacres
The government’s internal two-day count, as described to TIME, dwarfs a figure of 3,117 announced on January 21 by hardline officials who report directly to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
While the true number of the dead in the protests is unknown, activists assigning names to the dead had confirmed 5,459 deaths as of Saturday and were investigating more than 17,000 additional cases, US-based Iranian rights group HRANA reported on Saturday.
On Sunday, Iran International estimated that at least 36,500 Iranians have been killed by the regime since the beginning of the protests, citing new documentation and eyewitness accounts from medical staff, families of the deceased, and others.
The Daily Mail, citing Iranian-German Professor Amir-Mobarez Parasta, produced a similar estimate, stating that the death toll may be sitting at over 33,000, with 97,645 people wounded.
Both Iranian International and Parasta noted that the regime has reportedly started carrying out executions across the country.
Several of the dead were reportedly shot in the head after being admitted to the hospital for medical treatment, per images released from local morgues and seen by Iran International.
A group of medical personnel confirmed to Iran International that “lethal shots were fired at the injured.”
Accounts gathered by TIME described the internet blackout’s role in obscuring the toll, with images of bodies trickling out via illicit satellite connections. Early on into the protests, the regime conducted a near-total internet shutdown across Iran.
Shortly afterwards, hospitals in Tehran were crowded with wounded and dead, while conditions inside Iran’s digital iron curtain left families unable to verify the fate of relatives.
The crackdown unfolded as opposition figures urged mass turnout. Throughout the protests, Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi’s calls for united protests have been widely circulated.
International bodies have since moved to address alleged abuses, with the UN Human Rights Council extending an independent probe into the violence.
“The 30,000 verified deaths are almost certainly an underestimate,” Columbia University researcher Les Roberts told TIME, noting that crisis mortality counts often omit victims who never reach hospitals or are buried outside official channels.
Paul B. Spiegel of Johns Hopkins praised the rapid hospital data collection under dangerous conditions but cautioned that intimidation, disrupted record keeping, and parallel military medical systems can skew tallies. Both experts said only transparent access to hospital logs, civil registries, and burial records would clarify the true toll.
“According to Israeli officials, the night of January 8 on the streets of Iran was the deadliest in the history of the Islamic Republic—and among the deadliest worldwide in a generation,” N12 News reporter Amit Segal posted to X/Twitter on Sunday morning.
“The regime murdered thousands, possibly tens of thousands,” he wrote. “A massacre on an almost unimaginable scale.”