‘Tired and frightened’: How Iranians are facing the war

Saqib Mir was on the streets of Tehran on the morning of February 28 when a wave of air strikes hit the Iranian capital.

“There was chaos all around,” the doctor told Scroll. “People were rushing to their homes through the subway.”

Hours later, Mir heard the news of Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei being killed in his home in a strike carried out by the United States and Israel. “For three consecutive days, Israel-US carried out major strikes,” Mir said.

On the fourth day, Mir decided it would be risky to stay on in Tehran. He decided to leave for Qom, a city to the south of Tehran, because it was safer there. He travelled 150 km by bus and booked into a hotel.

Tehran, he added, seems deserted now. Most people who could afford to have left for other parts of the country. “It’s unpredictable and difficult to guess what will happen next,” Mir said.

Even in Qom, air strikes have hit specific targets. “We were sleeping in our hotel room and suddenly the hotel went shaky and quivered like hell,” he said. The strike was not far from the hotel, he added. On March 8, another air strike hit a residential building in Qom.

As the war on Iran stretches...

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