Warning: this story contains graphic content which some readers might find distressing
Hundreds of photos revealing the faces of those killed during Iran's violent crackdown on anti-government protests have been leaked to BBC Verify.
The pictures depict the bloodied, swollen and bruised faces of at least 326 victims, including 18 women. These images, displayed in a south Tehran mortuary, have served as one of the few means for families to identify their dead loved ones.
Many of the victims were too disfigured to be recognized, and 69 individuals were marked as John or Jane Doe, indicating their identities remained unknown at the time the photographs were taken. Only 28 of the victims bore labels with identifiable names.
More than 100 victims had their date of death recorded as January 9, marking one of the deadliest nights for demonstrators in Tehran.
During these protests, streets became battle zones with fires and chants against the supreme leader and the Islamic Republic following calls for action from Reza Pahlavi, the exiled son of the late shah.
The leaked photographs serve as a harrowing glimpse into the thousands believed to have perished at the hands of the Iranian authorities.
BBC Verify has been tracking the protests since late December, but the near-total internet blackout imposed by the government has hindered efforts to capture the full extent of the violence.
Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has acknowledged that several thousand people have been killed while blaming foreign entities and “seditionists” for the unrest. Despite the ongoing internet blackout, information continues to trickle out, with victims’ close-up images leaked from the Kahrizak Forensic Medical Centre.
Out of 392 photographs examined, 326 individuals were identified, revealing the scale of devastation in the mortuary complex, where victims ranged from as young as 12 to elderly civilians in their 70s.
Family members huddled around screens attempting to identify their lost loved ones amid horrific injuries, some suffering so severely they could not be recognized. This snapshot captures the chilling reality of ongoing protests and governmental violence in Iran.
