Tens of thousands of Iranians have left Tehran and other cities under aerial bombardment, driving into the countryside to wait out the U.S.-Israeli campaign in small villages and remote towns, according to the United Nations refugee agency and accounts gathered by The Associated Press. The U.N. said roughly 100,000 people fled Tehran in the first two days of the conflict alone — a figure officials said likely understates the total displacement from a capital of about 9.7 million and from other urban centers across the country.
The accounts describe civilians caught between the aerial campaign targeting military and government sites and a Revolutionary Guard that has grown more visibly armed even in towns far from the strikes — with many families now watching their savings shrink and wondering how long they can wait.
Sheltering in the countryside
Pouya Akhgari, 22, is staying in a family house with aunts and cousins in a village in Zanjan province, approximately 200 kilometers from his home in Tehran. As snow falls in the mountainous countryside, he mostly spends his days watching movies and television shows and sometimes ventures out to the nearest main town.
“It just feels so chaotic. I thought it’d be very short but it’s dragging on,” he told the AP by a messaging app. “If it goes on like this, we’ll run out of money.”
A 39-year-old lawyer from Ahvaz, 800 kilometers southeast of Tehran, said she endured a day of explosions shaking her home before packing her belongings and leaving on March 2 with her brother, sister and their families — along with their dogs. They drove to her family’s strawberry farm in a small town several hours away. She and others contacted by the AP spoke on condition of anonymity to prevent reprisals; she asked that the town not be identified.
The town has no military bases, she said, which makes it feel relatively safer. Still, uncertainty reaches even there. She said that the next town over — even smaller — was struck when an airstrike hit an ammunition depot belonging to the Revolutionary Guard. She said she worries that a gym used by Guard members a few hundred meters from the farm could also be targeted.
“The danger exists,” she said.
To pass the time, she and her family walk the dogs, play board games and pick strawberries. The brightest moment, she said, came when one of the farm dogs, Maya, gave birth to a litter of puppies.
Still, the financial pressure is constant.
“From morning to night, we talk about what is happening, our worries, how everything gets more expensive every day, about how far our money will stretch,” she said. “If this situation continues, we will have problems meeting basic needs.”
Fleeing with children
One Tehran man described watching his 6½-year-old son tremble in fear from the explosions. The family placed the boy between them in bed, he said, but he still screamed in his sleep.
“The scene made the city look frightening,” he said, describing the columns of smoke rising over Tehran as they drove out through the Alborz Mountains to the northwest.
On the highway west of the capital, heavy with traffic, explosions shook their car. They eventually reached a family home in a village northwest of Tehran, overlooking the Caspian Sea, surrounded by rice paddies with snow-capped mountains in the distance. Local residents showed what he described as “remarkable kindness” — at the neighborhood bakery, the baker recognized he wasn’t local, called him to the front of a long line, and tried to refuse payment.
“The others in line were very friendly, asking whether I had a place to stay and whether I needed anything,” he said.
Not everyone has been able to leave. A 53-year-old man in Tehran said he cannot move his elderly parents, so he has stayed. Each night, he said, the strain becomes unbearable.
“At night, I go down to the parking garage, sit inside my car and scream out loud,” he said. “I pray for calm and for quieter days.”
Guard presence and political signals
The U.S.-Israeli campaign has struck hard at Iran’s leadership, killing Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and top military figures, according to the AP. Khamenei’s son, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, was named the new supreme leader. The Revolutionary Guard and its all-volunteer Basij force — which has led the suppression of anti-government protests, including demonstrations in January — have maintained their local networks, according to AP reporting.
The lawyer said that on the rare occasions she left the farm to go into town, she saw Basij members more heavily armed in the streets.
“They are waiting for the slightest movement” showing dissent, she said.
She had campaigned against mandatory hijab enforcement and was briefly detained for it in the past. Since the war began, she wears one when she leaves home for fear of provoking the Basij.
Religious and patronage loyalties run deep in rural areas in particular, she noted — the Islamic Republic brought basic services to Iran’s countryside and many residents hold state positions or have joined the Guard. Yet even there, she said, she has seen signs of growing discontent. Large crowds turned out in the town for January’s anti-government protests, she said, and observance of the official mourning week declared for Khamenei has been muted, with few people wearing black as authorities urged.