Bombs drive Iranians from cities to villages

As explosions shake Iran’s major cities, tens of thousands of residents are abandoning their homes and fleeing into the countryside, seeking safety far from the expanding bombardment.

Families from Tehran and other urban centres have packed cars and headed toward remote villages, mountain towns and farmland. For many, the move is a desperate attempt to escape airstrikes by the United States and Israel that have rattled neighbourhoods and shattered any sense of normal life.

Capital empties as bombardment intensifies

According to the UNHCR, roughly 100,000 people fled Tehran within the first two days of the war alone. The real figure is believed to be far higher as residents continue leaving the capital and other cities under attack.

Twenty-two-year-old Pouya Akhgari is now sheltering with relatives in a village in Zanjan Province, about 200 kilometres from Tehran. While the village remains untouched by strikes, friends back in the capital describe explosions echoing across the city.

“It just feels chaotic,” he said through a messaging app. “If this goes on, we’ll run out of money.”

Strawberry fields offer fragile refuge

Elsewhere, a lawyer who fled Ahvaz is hiding with relatives on a strawberry farm in a small rural town.

The farm appears safe for now, far from military bases. But nearby areas have still seen strikes — including one that hit a Revolutionary Guard ammunition site in a neighbouring settlement.

Days are spent walking dogs, picking strawberries and playing board games to distract children kept away from school. Yet conversations inevitably return to rising prices and fears about how long savings will last.

Between airstrikes and security forces

Even far from the front lines, the war’s political shadow remains.

The lawyer said members of the paramilitary Basij — closely linked to the powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps — are increasingly visible and heavily armed in nearby towns.

“They are waiting for the slightest movement,” she said, describing how dissent could be swiftly crushed.

A country suspended between fear and kindness

For some families, the journey out of Tehran was terrifying. One father described driving west with his young son as blasts shook the highway and columns of smoke rose behind them near the Alborz Mountains.

Now sheltering near the Caspian Sea, he says village life offers a fragile calm. Strangers have shown unexpected kindness, even refusing payment for bread.

But not everyone can escape. Some remain trapped in the capital, waiting out the war in underground garages and parking lots — praying for the bombs to stop.

Iranians fleeing cities under attack seek refuge in the countryside