Her family told her Tehran wasn't safe. Parastesh Dahaghin, a young pharmacist, refused to leave.
"People need me, people have been wounded," she told her brother Poorya. "They come to the pharmacy, and elderly people need their medication. I have to stay here and help my people."
She was at her pharmacy in Tehran's Apadana neighborhood when a nearby building was struck. The Iran Human Rights Documentation Center documented her death. Her brother wrote on Instagram: "You were so noble."
Video posted online shows a mourning ceremony — framed pictures of Parastesh nestled among candles and flowers.
The Three Names BBC Documented
For 24 days, Tehran and cities across Iran have been struck by US and Israeli airstrikes. HRANA, the human rights monitoring group that tracks attacks across provinces, has documented at least 1,500 deaths — estimating that at least 15% of those killed are children under 18.
These numbers are counts. They tell you the scale. They don't tell you who.
An internet blackout — instituted by Iranian authorities and compounded by strikes on telecommunications infrastructure — has severely limited the flow of information out of Iran. What emerges comes through fragments: social media posts by diaspora members, reports from Kurdish human rights organizations that maintain networks inside Iran, Iranian Red Crescent footage, and diplomatic correspondents working under severe constraints.
BBC diplomatic correspondent Caroline Hawley and reporter Soroush Pakzad documented three of the casualties by name on Monday. Three people, named, documented, with details — out of 1,500+.
Parastesh Dahaghin: The Pharmacist
Parastesh Dahaghin was a young pharmacist working in Tehran's Apadana neighborhood. She was killed when a building housing an IT company — one that reportedly played a role in Iran's internet shutdown — was struck. The strike hit the building and the surrounding area. She was at work in her pharmacy when the explosion reached her.
The Iran Human Rights Documentation Center documented her death. Her brother Poorya wrote publicly about her on Instagram.
She had known the risk. She chose to stay anyway, because pharmacies near strike zones were needed, because elderly patients were coming in for medication they couldn't get elsewhere, because she believed people needed her.
The target — the IT building — was a reported military/dual-use facility. The pharmacy was collateral. The distinction is legally significant; it does not diminish the reality of what happened to Parastesh Dahaghin.
Eilmah Bilki: Three Years Old
Eilmah Bilki was 3 years old. She was severely wounded in US-Israeli airstrikes in the western town of Sardasht in early March. She died the day after being injured.
Her photo was provided to the BBC by Hengaw — a Norwegian-based Kurdish human rights organization that monitors conditions in Iran's Kurdish regions. Hengaw documents human rights violations in areas where Iranian state control limits independent media access, and has been a consistent source of casualty documentation throughout the conflict.
Less is known about Eilmah beyond what Hengaw provided: her name, her age, her injury, her death. She was three years old. That is most of what the record holds.
Berivan Molani: The Blogger Who Came Home
Berivan Molani was 26 years old. She ran an online lifestyle blog and a small clothes shop. She was an only child.
When the bombing began, her family moved her north — out of Tehran, to safety. She stayed there for weeks. Then, one day, she told them she was coming back. She missed home.
She returned to the family's apartment on Makouyipour Street in Tehran's Zafaraniyeh district — a wealthy neighborhood. Her family didn't know that Iran's minister of intelligence, Esmail Khatib, lived directly across the street.
On the night of March 17, Israeli aircraft struck Khatib's residence. The strike targeted a senior intelligence official. The blast radius took the street with it. Multiple neighbors were killed. Berivan Molani was killed in her bed, asleep, "right before going to sleep," according to Razieh Janbaz, a friend who posted about her death publicly. She was killed by crush injuries when the strike brought debris down on her bedroom.
Iranian Red Crescent footage, released publicly, shows rescuers removing fallen masonry to try to reach Berivan's mother, who was also trapped in the rubble. The footage captures her mother, pinned beneath debris, begging: "Is my daughter alive?"
Berivan had already been pulled out. Her injuries were fatal.
The target — Khatib — was the minister of intelligence, a direct participant in the Iranian state's security apparatus and a legitimate military objective under international humanitarian law's standard for "effective contribution to military action." The legal analysis does not change the fact that Berivan Molani returned home because she missed Tehran, and died in her bed because an intelligence minister lived across the street.
The Internet Blackout: Why Most Names Are Lost
The three cases BBC documented represent an infinitesimal fraction of the documented deaths. The reason most names will never be recorded is structural.
Iran's government has implemented significant internet restrictions since the start of the conflict — partly through the IT infrastructure that was itself targeted in strikes, partly through deliberate state controls on access. The internet blackout the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center referenced in Parastesh Dahaghin's case is real: internet access across significant portions of Iran has been severely degraded.
This has two compounding effects on the civilian record:
Outward communication is suppressed. Family members inside Iran cannot easily post about deaths. Photographs can't be uploaded. Video can't be shared. The social media documentation that has tracked virtually every other modern conflict — from Ukraine to Gaza — is largely absent from the Iran war.
Journalist access is nonexistent. No Western journalists are embedded in Iran. No independent reporters can reach strike sites. The Iranian state media controls what footage is released. Human rights organizations like Hengaw, HRANA, and the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center operate through networks of contacts inside the country — but their ability to document, verify, and publish is constrained by the same communication breakdown affecting everyone else.
The result is a casualty count — "1,500+" — that almost certainly undercounts, attached to almost no individual names.
The Pattern of Civilian Deaths: What Is Known
Despite the documentation gap, the pattern of civilian death in the current conflict is partially visible through several sources:
HRANA tracks attacks across provinces, recording locations, dates, and whether casualties are confirmed or probable. HRANA's daily count of 206 attacks across 15 provinces in a single 24-hour period on Monday gives a sense of the geographic spread and pace of the strikes.
Hengaw focuses specifically on Kurdish regions in western Iran — Sardasht, Urmia, Mahabad — which have disproportionately appeared in reports of civilian casualties. Kurdish regions have historically been sites of significant Iranian state activity and counter-activity, and Hengaw's documentation capacity in these areas is relatively better than in central Tehran.
The Iranian Red Crescent has released footage of rescue operations in residential areas of Tehran. The footage is mediated by the Iranian state but represents direct visual evidence of rescue teams pulling people from rubble in civilian neighborhoods.
IDF claims identify strike targets as military infrastructure — IRGC headquarters, missile production facilities, intelligence sites, drone factories. The gap between claimed targets and documented civilian deaths in residential areas is the subject of active investigation by human rights organizations.
The pattern from what is visible: strikes are concentrated on military infrastructure, but the dual-use nature of some facilities (intelligence headquarters in residential neighborhoods, communications infrastructure shared by military and civilian networks) and the density of Tehran create civilian casualty risk regardless of targeting precision. Some documented deaths occur in areas with no apparent military target nearby — residential buildings in Urmia, an apartment street in Zafaraniyeh whose military significance was the intelligence minister living across the road.
What the Numbers Mean
1,500+ people. At least 15% are children. 206 attacks in 24 hours across 15 provinces. These are the documented minimums — rights groups consistently note their figures undercount because they can only document what they can verify, and verification in a wartime internet blackout is limited.
Parastesh Dahaghin, Eilmah Bilki, and Berivan Molani are three of those people. A pharmacist who wouldn't leave her patients. A three-year-old in a western border town. A 26-year-old who missed home.
The war is 24 days old. There are five more days until Trump's extended deadline expires. The IEA says this is the worst energy crisis in history. The diplomatic situation is chaotic. Those are the strategic facts.
The human facts are different in kind. They don't resolve into policy options or diplomatic outcomes. They are what they are: people who were alive on February 27 and are not alive now. "Most of their stories will never be told," BBC's Caroline Hawley wrote. These three were.