Man in Iran guns down 12 relatives in shooting spree with Kalashnikov rifle

A 30-year-old man has gunned down 12 of his relatives in a remote rural area in south-east Iran.

Head of the justice department of the province of Kerman, Ebrahim Hamidi, told the semi-official ISNA news agency the gunman opened fire on his father, brother and other relatives early in the morning in a village because of family disputes.

The shooting will be the deadliest reported in decades.

The report, which did not identify the assailant, said he used a Kalashnikov assault rifle.

Local media report on occasional shootings, but this attack had the highest death toll in Iran, where citizens are only legally allowed hunting rifles, common in rural areas.

In 2022, an employee who was dismissed from a state-owned financial conglomerate opened fire at his former workplace, killing three people and injuring another five before killing himself in the country’s west.

In 2016, a 26-year-old man shot 10 relatives in a rural area in the south of Iran.

In recent years, violence has spiked in the country, which is suffering from deteriorating economic conditions coupled with crushing American sanctions that helped spark soaring inflation and increasing unemployment.

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