A Massacre That Continues in the Survivors’ Dreams!

From searching for the bodies of loved ones to memories that disturb families’ nights

A mother who still cannot escape that scene

In a message, a mother described the day she searched among the bodies at the forensic medicine centre near Behesht-e Zahra, looking for her child’s body. She says the memory of that scene still torments her, even in her sleep. We do not know how often she has seen it in her dreams, or how much this anguish has disrupted her daily life. What we do know is what she herself has said: the search ended, but its painful memory remains.

Her account raises a question that goes beyond the number of people killed in the bloody massacre of 18 and 19 Dey 1404: when the shooting stops and the dead have been buried, do the human consequences of a massacre also come to an end?

After examining verified images and videos from the Kahrizak forensic medicine centre, Human Rights Watch reported that families searched for their loved ones among large numbers of body bags. Amnesty International has also examined and verified images of distressed families searching for bodies. Documenting these scenes is essential to establishing the scale of the massacre; but cameras cannot show what the memory of those hours does to survivors’ sleep and peace of mind months later.

When memory returns in sleep

The World Health Organization explains that exposure to extremely traumatic events, including war and violence, may lead to lasting mental distress in some people. Unwanted memories, the return of images from the event and nightmares are among the symptoms sometimes seen in post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD. At the same time, the organisation emphasises that most people exposed to traumatic events do not develop PTSD.

So we should not diagnose, from a distance, the mother who has spoken about her painful dreams. The importance of her account lies elsewhere: a person may work, talk, socialise and seem to have returned to life during the day, while part of a past experience continues to be present in their sleep. Disturbed sleep can also leave someone tired and worn out the next day, without those around them necessarily knowing why.

The crucial point is not only seeing the body, but the circumstances in which it is encountered. Someone who has time to decide, prepare and say goodbye is in a different situation from a person forced, in a state of anxiety, to search among numerous bodies for a loved one.

Seeing a loved one’s body: what does the research say?

A study published in 2014 of 666 bereaved parents in Sweden who had lost a child to suicide found that those who had seen their child’s body reported more death-related nightmares and unwanted memories than the other group. Nevertheless, most did not regret their decision to view the body. These findings remind us of two things at once: seeing a body can be a complex and painful experience, but its effects cannot be assumed to be the same for everyone.

Any comparison between this study and the Dey massacre must be made cautiously. Seeing a body in formal circumstances, with the possibility of choosing, is different from searching among a multitude of bodies. The study was not conducted among Iranian families and cannot determine the extent of psychological harm suffered by survivors of the Dey massacre. But it does show that the connection between encountering a loved one’s body and memories at night is a subject that can be studied, not merely a literary image.

Suffering that does not affect only one mother

A child who has lost a parent, a sister whose brother has been killed, or a spouse whose last image of their partner is bound up with violence will not necessarily have the same experience. Some may face unwanted memories or distressing dreams; others may have no such symptoms. We should not call natural grief an illness, but neither should we ignore suffering that is not visible on the surface.

In its guidance on psychological support in emergencies, the World Health Organization emphasises the need to respect the dignity of those affected and to avoid forcing them to recount painful experiences. Attending to survivors means, first and foremost, listening to them—not imposing a narrative or a psychiatric diagnosis on their lives.

The massacre ends; the suffering does not

Recording the number of people killed is essential for establishing the truth and securing accountability, but it is not enough to understand all the consequences of a massacre. Some wounds do not appear in mortality statistics; they show themselves in a mother’s troubled sleep, a child’s fear or a memory that returns unbidden.

Amnesty International has reported pressure on some families of those killed in Dey, as well as restrictions on their burials and mourning. This pressure raises another question: when even the opportunity to grieve freely is restricted, how can survivors come to terms with the memory of their loss? There can be no definitive answer for every individual, but the question itself cannot be ignored.

That mother speaks of a past that becomes a piece of historical news for others, but still returns in her dreams. Perhaps that is why, alongside the question “How many people were killed?”, we must ask: “How many people survived, yet still live with the memory of that massacre?”

The day of the massacre can be recorded in the calendar; the end of the survivors’ suffering cannot.