The Iranian regime has killed at least 16,500 people and injured over 330,000 more as they continue to ruthlessly target demonstrators – and even uninvolved civilians – in nationwide anti-government protests, a shocking new report claims.

The alarming death toll – far exceeding the roughly 3,100 verified by activist groups – was detailed in a new report from doctors on the ground treating victims amid the slaughter, the Sunday Times reported.

The disturbing figures, compiled from eight major hospitals and 16 emergency departments, revealed between 16,500 and 18,000 people have been killed, with most victims believed to be younger than 30. 

“This is a whole new level of brutality,” Professor Amir Parasta, an Iranian-German eye surgeon, who spoke to the outlet on behalf of dozens of medical professionals in Tehran.

“[In 2022] they were using rubber bullets and pellet guns taking out eyes. This time they are using military-grade weapons and what we are seeing are gunshot and shrapnel wounds in the head, neck and chest,” he continued.

“I’ve spoken to dozens of doctors on the ground and they are really shocked and crying. These are surgeons who have seen war.”

Another 330,000 to 360,000 have been injured, including children and pregnant women, according to the report.

At least 1,000 people have lost an eye, with one hospital in Tehran reporting 7,000 eye injuries.

“There are so many shotgun-related eye injuries that we do not know whom to treat first,” said one ophthalmologist, the outlet reported.

At least 26 women have been killed in the protests, according to the Norwegian-based Hengaw Organization for Human Rights, which has been working to verify the death toll.

The group named six more women on Sunday who were allegedly killed by Iran’s security forces, including Sholeh Sotoudeh, a pregnant mother-of-two who was shot during a protest in the Gilan province on Jan. 10.  

The group also confirmed the death of local activist Ziba Dastjerdi, 33, who was allegedly shot in front of her daughter during a protest in Nishapur.

Dastjerdi had attended the anti-government rally despite facing a sentence of 18 months in prison for her involvement in the nation’s 2022 protests.

The report comes as an Iranian official, citing verified figures for the first time, estimated that at least 5,000 people have been killed in the protests, Reuters reported.

The official noted that most of the killings unfolded in Iran’s Kurdish areas, with the minority group seeing the greatest violence from Tehran’s security forces. 

Shocking video captured one such clash last week, which saw security forces raid a hospital in Ilam’s Kurdish-majority community and attack patients and doctors as they arrested wounded protesters.

The Iranian official added that it was unlikely for the death toll to further “increase sharply,” with the exact number still difficult to pin down given the chaos on the ground. 

The protests, which exploded on Dec. 28, spread rapidly across all 31 provinces, morphing from demonstrations over a collapsing economy into the most serious threat to Iran’s clerical rulers since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

The regime answered with overwhelming force, deploying the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and its Basij militia to crush the unrest, according to rights groups and witness accounts.

As the killings mounted, authorities imposed a near-total internet blackout on Jan. 8, plunging Iran into digital darkness for more than eight days — a move widely seen as an effort to hide the massacre and prevent images from spreading outside of the country.

“This is genocide under the cover of digital darkness,” Parasta told the Times.

“They said they would kill us until this stops and that’s what they are doing.”

Graphic footage that surfaced despite the shutdown showed rows of bodies piled inside and outside morgues, including at Tehran’s Kahrizak forensic center, as desperate families searched for missing relatives amid threats and intimidation.

One person who fled Iran told the outlet that the IRGC “sprayed everyone with gunfire” one night and were “calmly trying to aim for people’s heads.”

“Snipers on rooftops were shooting people in the back of the head,” another person recalled.

Doctors indicated that many victims have died because of a critical shortage of blood, the outlet reported.

Despite medical staff across multiple hospitals donating blood to save lives, security forces have blocked the transfusions in certain cases.

“We fight for hours to save lives, only to lose patients because they are not allowed to receive blood transfusions,” one Tehran surgeon said.

The carnage is causing conflict with the US, as President Trump ordered the Pentagon to prepare military strike options after reports that Iran was planning mass executions.

The White House abruptly pulled back when Tehran reportedly paused the hangings.

Despite the halt, Iran’s judiciary signaled on Sunday that the executions may still go ahead against those accused of Mohareb, an Islamic legal term meaning to wage war against God. 

“A series of actions have been identified as Mohareb, which is among the most severe Islamic punishments,” Iranian judiciary spokesperson Asghar Jahangir said on Sunday. 

The charge, which was allegedly levied against many of the protesters, is punishable by death under Iranian law.