Iranians fleeing Tehran were caught in bumper-to-bumper traffic jams on Monday night, spurred by US president Donald Trump, who warned the city’s 10 million citizens to evacuate to escape Israeli strikes.
While Trump said on Tuesday, the fifth day of the war, that he wants “a real end, not a ceasefire”, Iranians do not believe he will achieve this objective anytime soon.
Having ordered evacuations before Trump spoke, Israel has not said where people fleeing should go. There is concern that small towns and villages cannot provide accommodation for evacuees who reach their destinations after long hours on the road. Many Iranians cannot evacuate as they have elderly or ailing family members or jobs which cannot be carried out remotely.
One expatriate said she does not know where her cousins are as she has been unable to contact them. “Iranians don’t know what to do. People who leave Tehran to stay with relatives outside cannot be certain they will be safe. Many have gone back home. They do not know where this is heading. If someone else was in the White House, many people would feel better. No one knows when this war will stop. Now that Israel has started this war Israel must end it.”
She said before Israel’s strikes, Iranians were suffering from electricity outages, cuts in water supplies, internet disruptions and the collapse of the currency because of international sanctions. “The situation can only get worse,” she said.
Iranians living in Israeli-targeted cities complain that there are no air-raid sirens or bomb shelters, although the government has said people could go to metros in six of the largest cities: Tehran, Mashhad, Shiraz, Tabriz, Isfahan, and Karaj.
While mosques have also been suggested as safe places, Iranians have pointed out that Israel has not spared them during its war on Gaza.
Iranians were shocked when Israeli bombs briefly disrupted a newscast at Iran’s state television station in Tehran on Monday, and said journalists should not be targeted. Two people died in the attack.
The official toll has remained at 224 dead and about 1,200 wounded but is expected to rise. Health ministry spokesman Hossein Kermanpour said more than 90 per cent of casualties have been civilians. Patients were wounded when the Farabi hospital in the western city of Kermanshah was targeted on Monday, according to Esmaeil Baqaei of the foreign ministry.
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Hospitals in bombed residential areas have been deluged with dead and wounded, and doctors and nurses are overstretched and exhausted. The Guardian newspaper cited an emergency doctor at Tehran’s Imam Khomeini Hospital who said: “It was a bloodbath. We were overwhelmed by chaos and the screams of grieving family members. Dozens upon dozens of people with life-threatening injuries, minor wounds and even bodies were brought in.”
He added: “I’ve seen toddlers, teenagers, adults and elderly alike. Profusely bleeding mothers were rushing in with their children injured by shrapnel.”
