‘Iran is being destroyed in front of our eyes’: Tehran is gripped by fear

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TEHRAN - A mother huddling with her small child in the bathroom, trying to shield them against the explosions rocking their neighbourhood. Younger relatives frantically wheeling a 90-year-old bedridden patriarch to the hallway minutes before the windows shattered. A family of four descending from their 22nd-floor apartment by staircase, avoiding the elevator for fear the power may go out.

These were some of the scenes unfolding in Tehran, a sprawling metropolis of 10 million people, on April 3 and into the early hours of the morning on April 4.

The capital, including dense residential neighbourhoods in the leafy northern parts of the city, came under heavy bombardment as the war’s fifth week came to a close.

Fifteen residents of Tehran said in telephone interviews and text messages that they were simply terrified. Many asked that their last names not be used for fear of retribution.

“I have lost my concentration; I don’t know what will happen to us,” Ms Golshan Fathi, a resident of Tehran, said in a text message from the bathroom she was hiding in. “I’m very, very worried.”

Ms Saghar, another resident of the capital, said in a series of text messages that her home had shaken so violently from the air strikes that she thought it would collapse and bury her family.

“I thought, ‘OK, it’s over. We are all dying’,” she said. “I don’t know what to say. What just landed was very near and terrifying.”

For five weeks, ordinary Iranians have been caught in the crossfire of the intensifying war with the US and Israel.

They have watched with dismay and anxiety as US President Donald Trump has threatened to bomb them “back to the Stone Ages”, and as air strikes have hit critical infrastructure – including steel factories, power plants, airports, scientific research centres and top universities.

“Iran is being destroyed in front of our eyes,” wrote Mr Afshin, a 58-year-old business owner, adding: “What if we are left here to rot in the hands of this regime with no connection to the outside world?”

The Human Rights Activists News Agency, a US-based rights organisation, said that over the past 24 hours it had recorded 206 attacks in 13 provinces in Iran, with at least one civilian killed.

In total, the group has recorded at least 1,607 civilian deaths since the start of the war.

Augmenting people’s anxiety are the recent escalations from Iran’s leadership. On April 3, Iran shot down a US fighter jet in the south-west part of the country.

While one of the two airmen in the jet was rescued, American rescue teams and Iran’s Revolutionary Guard were both hunting the mountain terrain looking for the other on April 3.

Iran also claimed responsibility for an American A-10 Warthog plane that crashed in the Persian Gulf around the same time as the jet, and shot at a military helicopter, which was forced to make a landing outside Iran’s borders.

Government supporters said they hoped the missing American crew member would be taken as a prisoner of war.

Earlier in the evening, crowds of government supporters gathered in several squares in Tehran waving flags and celebrating the downing of the US aircraft, according to video reports posted on state media.

The front pages of several Iranian newspapers, posted online, celebrated with headlines that read “The sky is under Iran’s control”, and “End to the fantasy of defeat”.

But others worried of the consequences.

“I hope the Americans find the pilot, because if we capture him, who knows what Trump will do to us,” said Mr Reza, a 48-year-old accountant. He went to the basement of his high-rise building with his wife and two children on April 3, and said they were anxious about electricity and water going out.

Iranians who were able to connect to the internet flooded social media with messages that captured the panic gripping the city.

Mr Milad Alavi, a journalist in Tehran, posted on social media: “Tonight’s explosions in northern Tehran have been suffocating. The population density in these areas is high, and people are in a panic, abandoning their homes.” NYTIMES