Iranian authorities on Thursday said twin blasts in the country’s south killed 84 people the previous day, revising down an earlier toll from the explosions at a top general’s commemoration.
According to the AFP, the Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi was quoted saying that “according to forensic statistics, the number of martyrs from this incident has been announced as 84 so far”.
The revised death toll was also confirmed by the head of Iran’s emergency services, Jafar Miadfar, who said the earlier tally of 95 killed was due to the fact that some bodies had been dismembered and counted “several times”.
Miadfar said 284 had been injured in what authorities labelled a “terrorist attack” in the southern city of Kerman. He added that “195 are still hospitalised”.
The blasts on Wednesday ripped through a crowd commemorating Revolutionary Guards general Qasem Soleimani, who was killed in a 2020 US strike in Baghdad.
No group has claimed responsibility, but the blasts came amid high tensions over the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza and the killing of a senior Hamas leader in Lebanon on Tuesday.
