Iranians have dug two trenches, together the size of a football field, since the country announced its first case of the coronavirus.
Satellite images show workers digging fresh trenches in a cemetery in Qom, a city about 80 miles south of Tehran, according to the Washington Post. Iran announced its first case of the disease on Feb. 19, and evidence of the trenches appeared two days later in preparation for mass burials of victims of COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus that first appeared in the Chinese city of Wuhan last year.
Iran is one of the hardest-hit countries outside of China. Tehran has said more than 400 people have died from the virus, including a handful of top officials that includes members of Iran’s Parliament. More than 10,000 Iranians have contracted the disease, including First Vice President Eshaq Jahangiri.
U.S. officials are skeptical of the coronavirus figures being reported by the Iranian regime. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has said that the tallies of those infected and dead are likely much higher and has suggested that Iran suppressed reporting and testing to hide the spread of the virus.
Pompeo has also demanded that Iranian authorities release American citizens wrongly imprisoned by the regime. Reports suggest that the virus may be sweeping through Iranian prisons but that the regime has blocked any testing to confirm potential cases in prisoners.
“Reports that COVID-19 has spread to Iranian prisons are deeply troubling and demand nothing less than the full and immediate release of all American citizens,” Pompeo said. “Their detention amid increasingly deteriorating conditions defies basic human decency.”
