‘He was shot in the heart’ – the teen victims of Iran’s ruthless crackdown
In a large warehouse on the outskirts of Tehran, the floor is covered in dozens – or possibly hundreds – of black plastic body bags.
Warning: This article contains descriptions some readers may find distressing.
Men and women pass amongst the rows of corpses, searching for a sign – or a distinguishing feature – of someone they love.
A woman kneels before a bloodied body, her face contorted with grief.
Her search is over. Her worst fears have been realised.
Outside the warehouse, which is part of a government forensic centre in Kahrizak, body bags are unloaded from pick-ups and larger vehicles.
These scenes are highly likely to have been replicated nationwide.
It is clear the protests in Iran have been met with a ruthless, state-backed crackdown. Human rights officials have attempted to count the number of fatalities, with one group putting the figure at around 650.
But the regime is working hard to cut all sources of information.
The internet has been blocked and it is now impossible make domestic and international phone calls.
Diako Haydari told Sky News that both he and his wife had been unable to sleep after hearing news of his cousin’s death.
The authorities have even managed to disable ‘Starlink’ internet receivers which connect to the web through the satellite network run by Elon Musk.
The only source of information comes from state television, which preoccupies itself with pro-government rallies.
Amir Ali Haydari’s cousin shows us a photo of his cousin.
The state cannot conceal everything
Relatives of a boy called Amir Ali Haydari, have told Sky News how the 17-year-old was shot and beaten to death in the city of Kermanshah.
His cousin, Diako Haydari, who lives in Cardiff, told us that the teenager attended protests last Thursday with his classmates.
“I got the latest information from our family today. He was shot in the heart, and as he was taking his last breath, they hit him in the head with the butt of a gun so many times that his brain was scattered on the ground.”
“Then, at the mortuary where all the bodies are, they issued a death certificate saying that he fell from a big height.”
In footage filmed in Kermanshah last Thursday, we see plain clothes policemen intimidating protesters and firing pistols at them on the streets.
Later that day, demonstrations formed in the centre of the city. We have obtained images of a protest in the area where Haydari was killed.
Family members say many of the teenager’s friends were caught up in the violence.
“Two of Amir friends are in a coma, and they killed many of his friends. Just like him. They shot them. Many of Amir Ali’s friends are dead,” says Mr Diako.
“They are savagely attacking people because they want to silence the voice of the people.”
Amir Ali Haydari was killed in his home city of Kermanshah in eastern Iran.
Read more:
How Iran enforced internet blackout
More than 500 killed in Iran, rights group says
According to the family, there were so many dead bodies from this protest that the authorities requisitioned two city buses to transport them to the morgue at Taleghani Hospital.
He added that: “When (the family) collected the body, Amir-Ali’s uncle told me that there were around 500 corpses at the hospital. He had to identify (Amir Ali’s) body from amongst all the bodies.”
For Mr Diako in Cardiff, it has all come as a terrible shock.
“I did not sleep last night, me and my wife did not sleep. There’s nothing we can do,” he told Sky News.
Officially at least, the regime is trying to project an air of normality as its security forces deploy brute force against their own people.
But it serves as a reminder that the clerics who run this country will do anything to stay in power.
