Iran crackdown overwhelms morgues

PROTESTERS DEFIANT: I AM NOT AFRAID ... I HAVE BEEN DEAD FOR 47 YEARS, SAYS ONE OF THEM

- BY STEPHEN N.R.

An anti-Iranian regime protester, with her face painted in the colours of the Iranian flag, takes part in a demonstration outside the Iranian Consulate, in Istanbul, yesterday.

(AFP)

They spoke in whispers, careful not to reveal their names, but their accounts poured out with urgency as Iran remains largely cut off from the outside world.

Witnesses and medical staff describing the crackdown on nationwide protests paint a grim picture of gunfire in the streets, overwhelmed hospitals and bodies stacked for lack of space.

Staff at three hospitals in Iran told the BBC that medical facilities were inundated with people killed or wounded during the unrest. A medic at a Tehran hospital said security forces fired “direct shots to the heads of the young people, to their hearts as well.”

A hospital worker in the capital said the scale of casualties left staff struggling to cope, often unable to provide even basic emergency care.

“The number was so large that there wasn’t enough space in the morgue; the bodies were placed on top of one another,” she told the BBC. “After the morgue became full, they stacked them on top of one another in the prayer room.”