If the estimates are true, the only comparable massacre in the history databases would be the killing of 33,000 Jews in the Holocaust-era Babyn Yar massacre outside Kiev in 1941.
As many as 30,000 people may have been killed in Iran during a two-day crackdown on Jan. 8 and 9, TIME reported 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 those publicly quoted by the authorities.
The number, if true, would massively increase the death toll from previously believed estimates. A few days after the alleged massacre, Iran International estimated at approximately 12,000 deaths over the two-day period.
Officials said the scale of the killings overwhelmed the capacity to handle the dead, depleting stocks of body bags and prompting the use of eighteen-wheel trailers to move the 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 walking into the street should not complain if a bullet hits them, according to the report.
A hospital tally shared with TIME listed 30,304 deaths as of Friday, Jan. 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 number probably excludes cases in military hospitals and inaccessible areas. Specialists in public health cited by TIME cautioned against extrapolating too much from hospital records, but said internal figures indicated mass killing over a short period.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei criticized the estimated death toll in an X/Twitter post on Sunday night, calling them “truly vicious” lies.
“A Hitler-style BIG LIE: Isn’t this the number they planned to kill on the streets of Iran?!” Baqaei wrote. “They failed though, and now they’re trying to fake it in the media. Really vicious!”
If the numbers are accurate, the massacre in Iran is similar to the Babyn Yar of the Holocaust
Experts have struggled to find historical parallels for so many people being shot to death in such a short space of time. TIME noted that the only event comparable to Iran’s two-day period in online mass murder databases involved the execution by firing squad of some 33,000 Jews during the Holocaust at Babyn Yar, outside Kiev, 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)
The death toll of Iran’s Islamic regime softens the truth and impact of the massacres
The government’s two-day internal count, as described in TIME, beats the 3,117 figure announced on January 21 by hardline officials who report directly to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
While the actual death toll in the protests is unknown, a US-based Iranian rights group, HRANA, confirmed 5,459 deaths as of Saturday and was investigating more than 17,000 additional cases.
On Sunday, Iran International estimated that at least 36,500 Iranians have been killed by the regime since the protests began, citing new documents and eyewitness accounts from medical personnel, families of the dead and others.
The Daily Mail, citing Iranian-German professor Amir-Mobarez Parasta, produced a similar estimate, saying the death toll could be over 33,000, with 97,645 injured.
Both Iranian International and Parasta noted that the regime had begun carrying out executions across the country.
Several of the dead were shot in the head after being admitted to hospital for medical treatment, according to 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 wounded.”
Accounts collected by TIME described the role of the Internet plume in mitigating the charge, with images of corpses leaking through illicit satellite connections. At the beginning of the protests, the regime almost completely cut off the Internet in Iran.
Soon after, hospitals in Tehran were overwhelmed with the wounded and dead, while conditions inside Iran’s digital iron curtain left families unable to check on the fate of relatives.
The crackdown unfolded as opposition figures called for mass turnout. Throughout the protests, Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi’s calls for united protests were widely broadcast.
Since then, international bodies have taken steps to address the alleged abuses, with the UN Human Rights Council expanding an independent inquiry into the violence.
“The 30,000 verified deaths is almost certainly an underestimate,” said Columbia University researcher Les Roberts. TIMEnoting that death tolls in the crisis often omit victims who never reach hospitals or are buried outside official channels.
Paul B. Spiegel of Johns Hopkins praised the rapid collection of hospital data under dangerous conditions, but warned that intimidation, broken record-keeping and parallel military medical systems could skew the accounts. Both experts said only transparent access to hospital diaries, civil registries and funeral records would clarify the true toll.
“According to Israeli officials, the night of Jan. 8 on the streets of Iran was the deadliest in the Islamic Republic’s history — and among the world’s deadliest in a generation,” N12 News reporter Amit Segal posted on X/Twitter Sunday morning.
“The regime has killed thousands, possibly tens of thousands,” he wrote. “A massacre on an almost unimaginable scale.”