TIME:

by Rebecca Schneid

At least 5,000 people were killed in the protests that gripped Iran this month, according to an Iranian official, 500 of whom were security personnel.

The toll is the highest yet cited by a government source for the nationwide protests that shook Iran’s establishment and brought the United States to the brink of intervention.

The Iranian official, who was quoted by Reuters, blamed "Israel and armed groups abroad" for the high number of people killed, and said the government’s official count was unlikely to go much higher.  

Protests erupted in Tehran after the rial, Iran’s currency, crashed on December 28. The demonstrations quickly snowballed into a broader anti-government movement calling for the fall of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

The crackdown began with an internet blackout on Jan. 8, plunging the country into an information darkness and preventing humanitarian groups and governments alike from understanding the full extent of the killing.

According to human rights groups, protesters were killed by security forces en masse. Throughout the blackout, IHR estimates that more than 20,000 people have been arrested in connection with the protests.

That blackout has made an accurate death toll difficult to ascertain, as humanitarian groups struggle to reach contacts on the ground. But as early as last week, an informal group of academics and professionals working at hospitals and contacted by TIME said protester deaths between Jan. 8 and Jan. 10 alone could have reached 6,000.

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