Iranian officials say 30,000 people may have been killed over just two days of the nationwide protests earlier this month, Time magazine reports.
The figure, quoted to Time by two unnamed senior officials in the country’s Ministry of Health, is the highest estimated death toll so far. It is far larger than the toll of 3,117 that the Iranian government publicized in recent days.
Time says it is unable to independently verify the figures but that the estimate of 30,000 accords with reports from doctors and other first responders on the ground during the protests.
The magazine reports that, according to the health officials, 30,000 people were killed just between January 8 and 9, in the heat of weeks-long anti-regime protests that spread across the country. Time cites the officials as saying that the country used 18-wheeler trucks instead of ambulances at that time, and ran out of body bags.
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