Three eyewitnesses have revealed an unprecedented and bloody crackdown in several cities of Isfahan Province, a repression that, according to them, has made these cities resemble war-torn areas.
These residents of Isfahan Province described what happened as a “large-scale massacre of Lur protesters” and said that the cities of Yazdanshahr, Fooladshahr, Shahinshahr, and Baharestan have effectively turned into ruins resembling Iranian cities devastated after war.
According to these witnesses, the repression was not limited to Isfahan Province, and cities such as Lordegan, Farsan, Junqan, Haftshajan, and Bazoft in Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari Province, as well as Izeh in Khuzestan Province, were also scenes of the massacre of protesters. These areas were among the first places to join the new wave of protests.
One eyewitness from Yazdanshahr says the marks of gunfire are clearly visible on the city’s walls and buildings: “The walls are riddled with holes, windows are shattered, banks and government buildings have been burned. Yazdanshahr now looks like Khorramshahr after its liberation.”
He adds that the intensity of the crackdown on Friday, January 9, was so extreme that “on Saturday morning, there was a corpse behind almost every car.” According to him, a relative who works in municipal sanitation said that municipal workers were overwhelmed and unable to collect the bodies.
Spraying Gunfire at Innocent People
This witness reported that protesters were sprayed with automatic gunfire and said that agents showed no mercy even to onlookers on rooftops, passersby, or shopkeepers. He also spoke of several members of some families being killed.
Yazdanshahr had seen a large presence of protesters since December 22, 2025. After widespread arrests that included at least 23 youths and teenagers under 24 years old, families warned that they would take to the streets if their children were not released. However, following the bloody crackdown, news from the city was effectively cut off.
The second eyewitness from Baharestan says that the number of those killed in the city was between 300 and 350 people, most of them from the local Bakhtiari minority. He described the level of violence by security forces as “unimaginable” and added that the city’s gas stations were burned and put out of service after the clashes, forcing residents to leave the city to obtain fuel.
Regarding Shahinshahr, he says the protesters were “completely unarmed,” while armed forces attacked people with military-grade weapons. According to this witness, agents even fired execution-style shots at the wounded, and at least 600 people were killed in the city.
This resident recounts that he went to a warehouse in “Bagh-e Rezvan” in Isfahan to identify the bodies of relatives and witnessed scenes that, in his words, made “Kahrizak look like nothing in comparison.” He says the bodies were piled on top of one another, and families had to move corpses one by one to identify them. Many victims were unrecognizable due to the severity of blows and gunshots to the face, and a large number of those killed were reportedly teenagers between 10 and 16 years old.
‘Bullet Money’ for Releasing Bodies; Repression of Protests in Iran Continues #IranProtests #IranRevolution #FreeIran2026 #No2ShahNo2Mullahshttps://t.co/GHYB4vIenF
— Iran Focus (@Iran_Focus) January 21, 2026
Martial Law in Fooladshahr
The third eyewitness, who lives in Fooladshahr, speaks of an atmosphere of extreme fear and terror: “After three or four in the afternoon, no one dares to go outside, even to buy medicine.” According to him, plainclothes forces armed with heavy weapons seal off different parts of the city before nightfall and have created conditions in which no one dares even to protest water and power outages or high prices.
He also reported skyrocketing prices and said that complete chaos prevails in the market while people have no purchasing power. This eyewitness also spoke of the widespread confiscation of satellite dishes and the complete shutdown of the internet and telephone services, saying the aim is to fully isolate the population and prevent access to information.
Not all figures and information in this report can be confirmed, as sufficient sources for independent verification are unavailable due to the internet shutdown. However, there is no doubt that the crimes committed across these cities are far greater than what is currently imagined.
