DUBAI – An activist organization based in the United States announced on Sunday that it has confirmed a minimum of 3,766 fatalities stemming from a series of protests in Iran, which were met with a severe crackdown. The group also expressed concerns that the actual number of deaths might be much higher.

The Human Rights Activists News Agency updated its previous count from 3,308 to reflect the new total, marking this as the deadliest period of protest-related violence in Iran for decades. The chaos is reminiscent of the upheaval during the 1979 revolution.

This agency is known for its reliability in documenting such events within Iran, utilizing a network of domestic activists to authenticate reported deaths. However, the Associated Press has not been able to independently verify these numbers.

Iranian authorities have not released an official death count. Nonetheless, on Saturday, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei acknowledged that the protests had resulted in “several thousand” deaths, attributing the casualties to U.S. influence. This was the first acknowledgment from a senior Iranian figure regarding the scale of the losses from protests that erupted on December 28, triggered by economic difficulties. According to the Human Rights Activists News Agency, the crackdown has also led to the arrest of 24,348 demonstrators.

Iranian leaders have consistently accused the United States and Israel of inciting turmoil within the nation.

Tension with the United States has been high, with U.S. President Donald Trump repeatedly threatening Tehran with military action if his administration found the Islamic Republic was using deadly force against anti-government protesters.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, in a post Sunday on X, blamed “longstanding enmity and inhumane sanctions” imposed by the U.S. and its allies for any hardships the Iranian people might be facing. “Any aggression against the Supreme Leader of our country is tantamount to all-out war against the Iranian nation,” he wrote.

During the protests, Trump had told demonstrators that “ help is on the way ” and that his administration would “act accordingly” if the killing of demonstrators continued or if Iranian authorities executed detained protesters.

But he later struck a conciliatory tone, saying that Iranian officials had “canceled the hanging of over 800 people” and that “I greatly respect the fact that they canceled.”

On Saturday, Khamenei branded Trump a “criminal” for supporting the rallies and blamed the U.S. for the casualties, describing the protesters as “foot soldiers” of the United States.

Trump, in an interview with Politico Saturday, called for an end to Khamenei’s nearly 40-year reign, calling him as “a sick man who should run his country properly and stop killing people.”

No protests have been reported for days in Iran, where the streets have returned to an uneasy calm. Instead, some Iranians chanted anti-Khamenei slogans from the windows of their homes on Saturday night, the chants reverberating around neighborhoods in Tehran, Shiraz and Isfahan, witnesses said.

Authorities have also blocked access to the internet since Jan. 8. On Saturday, very limited internet services functioned again briefly. Access to some online services such as Google began working again on Sunday, although users said they could access only domestic websites, and email services continued to be blocked.