Hundreds protest in Iran's Zahedan weeks after 'Bloody Friday'

This image grab from a UGC video made available on October 14, 2022, shows Iranian protesters chanting slogans as they march in a street in the southeastern city of Zahedan. (AFP)
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Updated 21 October 2022
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Hundreds protest in Iran's Zahedan weeks after 'Bloody Friday'

  • Zahedan, the capital of Sistan-Baluchistan province, is one of few Sunni-majority cities in Iran
  • Iranian forces killed at least 93 people who had gathered at the same location on September 30

PARIS: Hundreds of demonstrators took to the streets of the southeastern Iranian city of Zahedan, three weeks after dozens were killed in "Bloody Friday" protests, online videos showed. 

"Death to the dictator", the protesters, mostly young men, chanted Friday in reference to supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei outside a police station, in footage widely shared on social media. 

Iranian security forces killed at least 93 people who had gathered at the same location on September 30, Oslo-based group Iran Human Rights said. 

Zahedan, the capital of Sistan-Baluchistan province, is one of the few Sunni-majority cities in predominantly Shiite Iran. 

"Death to Khamenei" and "Unity, unity," the protesters shouted after Friday prayers in a video shared by Radio Farda, a US-funded Persian station. 

The slogans echoed those chanted in nationwide protests over Mahsa Amini, an Iranian woman of Kurdish origin who died in custody on September 16. 

Amini, 22, died three days after falling into a coma following her arrest in Tehran by the morality police for an alleged breach of the Islamic republic's strict dress code for women. 

Two weeks later, violence erupted in Zahedan during protests that were triggered by anger over the reported rape of a teenage girl by a police commander in the region. 

Poverty-stricken Sistan-Baluchistan, which borders Afghanistan and Pakistan, is a flashpoint for clashes with drug smuggling gangs, as well as rebels from the Baluchi minority and Sunni Muslim extremist groups. 


Trump offers to mediate Egypt-Ethiopia dispute on Nile River waters

US President Donald Trump and Egypt's President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, October 13, 2025. (REUTERS)
Updated 17 January 2026
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Trump offers to mediate Egypt-Ethiopia dispute on Nile River waters

  • Egypt says ​the dam violates international treaties and could cause both droughts ⁠and flooding, a claim Ethiopia rejects

WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump offered on Friday to mediate a dispute over Nile River ​waters between Egypt and Ethiopia. “I am ready to restart US mediation between Egypt and Ethiopia to responsibly resolve the question of ‘The Nile Water Sharing’ once and for all,” he ‌wrote to ‌Egyptian President ‌Abdel ⁠Fattah El-Sisi ​in ‌a letter that also was posted on Trump’s Truth Social account.
Addis Ababa’s September 9 inauguration of its Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam has been a source of anger ⁠in Cairo, which is downstream on the ‌Nile.
Ethiopia, the continent’s second-most ‍populous nation ‍with more than 120 million people, ‍sees the $5 billion dam on a tributary of the Nile as central to its economic ambitions.
Egypt says ​the dam violates international treaties and could cause both droughts ⁠and flooding, a claim Ethiopia rejects.
Trump has praised El-Sisi in the past, including during an October trip to Egypt to sign a deal related to the Gaza conflict. In public comments, Trump has echoed Cairo’s concerns about the water issue.