Iranian doctor who fled to Australia after operating on massacre victims estimates death toll in tens of thousands

By Norman Hermant, 7.30 ABC Photo: AFP/SUPPLIED Nearly three weeks since large anti-regime protests in Iran were violently crushed, Iranian doctor Arash* still can't get the aftermath out of his mind. "The blood smell, it was very, very devastating," Arash told 7.30. "I cannot forget; that blood smell was everywhere, all around the emergency room." Before arriving in Australia, Arash had been working in a city outside the Iranian capital of Tehran. On 8 January - the first night of the protests called for by the exiled son of the last Shah, Reza Pahlavi - he was in the Iranian capital for work. Photo: AFP That night, he heard the sound of machine guns in the street. Not long after, a colleague called asking him to rush to a major Tehran hospital. "We have a disaster," he told him. "It was something that I have never seen before," Arash said. He found an emergency room overflowing with hundreds of patients, most with bullet wounds. "I see that some of the bodies don't move, do not breathe. And there were just dead bodies," he told 7.30. Arash was asked to perform triage. "I can remember that I was just walking between patients and I wasn't paying attention to patients that cried, because I feel that a patient that cries will survive at least two, three hours later. "I was just looking for patients that were silent." Soon, Arash was called into surgery. "I think I performed 18 surgeries from 10:30pm to 5:00am, and I think that many of the patients died because the injuries were very severe and the injuries needed prompt action," Arash said. "For example, if there is a liver injury and you do not operate to the patient with bullet inside the liver, most of the patients will die within a couple of hours." Hospitals overwhelmed Immediately after the nationwide protests on 8 and 9 January, as phone lines opened up within Iran, Arash was able to call medical colleagues around the country. They all reported the same thing: hospitals were overwhelmed with dead and wounded from the protests. Iran initially said more than 2000 people had been killed, then adjusted that number to more than 3000. Activist groups have estimated far larger numbers of dead. "When I hear about 2000 or some day later, 12,000, it was a joke for me," Arash said. "Because I realised the number of surgeries performed during these days by asking my colleagues … I was wondering about [the] number of killed." Arash believes the true toll is far higher - a personal estimate based on conversations with colleagues - but there is no independent verification of such figures. "I know that with passing time, and by more interviews and by more data available from families of the injured and victims, it will be increased to 40 to 50,000," he told 7.30. Photo: Middle East Images via AFP As the world waits to see how the US will respond, Arash believes that for now, Iran's Islamic regime has halted the protest tide. "The people came to the street, Reza Pahlavi called them to come to the street, and President Trump told them that, I have your back, and we are supporting you. And the people rely on this statement," he said. "The people came to the street and they were killed massively. So, from this point, I cannot think that people have enough energy and motivation to do some rising again, at least in [the short term]." 'They shot everywhere, everyone' The bloodshed occurred across the country as the regime's security forces unleashed upon anti-government demonstrations in many cities. Navid* joined the protest in the city of Rasht, about 300 kilometres north of Tehran, on 8 January. He has since left Iran. "There were a lot of people. Maybe 30 to 40,000 people in the city centre started to [chant], 'We don't want this regime, this regime has to go out of our country,'" he said. It didn't take long for security forces to respond. "They opened fire on the people. They shot the people," Navid told 7.30. "I was scared. Everyone was scared. "We didn't know that the police and the regime will do something really like that." Rasht is a regional centre. Navid said that many protesters had come from outlying areas and weren't familiar with the layout of the city. When police opened fire, many demonstrators ran into the city's central market bazaar. "I saw a lot of people got shot in the street and in the bazaar," he said. "They shot everywhere. Kids, old people, young people, everyone. And I saw that." From feeling powerful to fleeing Sara* escaped injury at the anti-regime protests in a city several hundred kilometres from Tehran. She has since returned to Australia. She said the unity of people in protesting had given them a sense of power. "We saw families, even children, they were taking their hands, and they came out, we saw them everywhere. And when you are among them, you're seeing that you're not alone. That makes you feel powerful," she told 7.30. "No one between us brought even a knife or something to...

Iranian doctor who fled to Australia after operating on massacre victims estimates death toll in tens of thousands

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