An official from Ministry of Health and Medical Education confirmed in an interview with the newspaper Shargh the authenticity of “disturbing” photos published from an alley behind Al‑Ghadir Hospital in Tehran. The images show bodies left outside following the deadly crackdown on Thursday, January 8.
Last week, the news channels Mamlekateh and Vahid Online shared photos on social media showing several bodies wrapped in blankets, sheets, or cloth and abandoned in an alley between buildings.
Amid the absence of official reporting and strict media restrictions, social media reports claimed that the bodies belonged to protesters killed during the violent suppression on January 8 and 9.
A citizen later identified one of the bodies as his sister, naming her Aida Aghili.
Hossein Kermanpour, head of the Public Relations and Information Center of the Health Ministry, confirmed to Shargh that the photos are genuine. He stated that the bodies were placed outside the hospital due to lack of space and were later transferred to Kahrizak.
Providing figures on casualties brought to the hospital that night, Kermanpour said: “Al-Ghadir Square was one of the most crowded areas on the night of January 8. Many injured people were taken from there to the nearest medical center, which was naturally Al-Ghadir Hospital.”
Earlier, the magazine Time reported that on January 8 and 9 — following a call by Reza Pahlavi for people to take to the streets — so many anti-government protesters were killed that authorities were unable to collect the bodies, and supplies of body bags were depleted.
According to two senior Iranian Health Ministry officials cited in the report, the number of corpses was so high that ambulances were insufficient, leading authorities to use large trucks for transport.
Kermanpour added that Al-Ghadir Hospital, located near Resalat Square in eastern Tehran, received about 150 injured individuals and the bodies of 36 deceased persons that night, while its morgue had capacity for only five bodies.
He concluded: “Therefore, the images circulated on social media — although extremely painful — are not far from reality and are authentic.”
