Hengaw, a Norway-based Kurdish human rights organisation that has monitored Iranian state violence since 2006, published its sixth war report on Thursday covering 28 February to 20 March. The count: 5,900 killed — 5,305 military personnel and 595 civilians, including 127 minors and 168 women1. Strikes have now hit 184 cities across 26 of Iran's 31 provinces — a campaign waged not against a single military front but across a country the size of Western Europe.
The trajectory is traceable through Hengaw's own reporting. Its fifth report, published two days earlier, counted 5,300 dead across 178 cities in 25 provinces. That implies roughly 600 additional fatalities in 48 hours — a daily rate that has not slowed despite three weeks of sustained bombardment and repeated US assertions that Iranian military capacity is degraded by 90%. Iran's Health Ministry, at the same point, reported 1,444 killed and 18,551 injured — approximately one-quarter of Hengaw's figure. That ratio mirrors the 2022 Mahsa Amini protests, when official counts ran at one-quarter to one-third of independent tallies compiled by the same organisations. HRANA, a second independent monitor, counted 3,099 at the same juncture — falling between the two and underscoring that no single figure commands consensus.
The Kurdish provinces carry a disproportionate burden. 1,480 military personnel were killed across more than 240 targeted bases in Kurdistan, Kermanshah, Ilam, and West Azerbaijan, alongside 98 civilians2. These provinces line Iran's western border with Iraq and Turkey — terrain dense with IRGC ground-force installations whose destruction follows a clear operational logic of degrading western defensive depth. Iran's Kurdish population, approximately 10 million people, has been subject to decades of security-force repression — Amnesty International documented snipers firing into crowds during the January 2026 crackdown alone — and holds no representation in the wartime decision-making of either Tehran or Washington. They absorb the bombardment without a voice in how or when it ends.
The Minab school strike crystallises the counting problem. Initially reported with 167 dead, only 58 victims have been identified after 21 days: 48 children and 10 adults. No explanation has been offered for the gap. A continuing telecommunications blackout across much of the country — NPR correspondents inside Iran have described deserted streets and severed communications — blocks independent verification from outside, while documented relocation of Iranian military forces into schools, dormitories, and mosques blurs the boundary between military and civilian sites in ways that will complicate any post-war accounting. The number 5,900 is Hengaw's best estimate. The real figure may be higher or lower. It may never be established with confidence.
