![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/1772509568_450_default.jpg\")
<\/p>\nOmid Golabkesh dragged his suitcase down a long hallway marking the exit of the Kapikoy border crossing in eastern Turkey. He had nearly reached the end of an exhausting journey that included a 12-hour drive to the checkpoint from his home in Tehran.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The border crossing sits on a mountainous section of the more than 500-kilometre border between Turkey and Iran. It is one of three places where people can cross from Iran and the gateway provides a window into the country, which is largely cut off from the outside world due to near-total internet blackouts.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Like many who stepped out into bright sun and frigid air, Golabkesh initially appeared wary of the journalists and cameras gathered there.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But unlike most, he gave his full name, consented to being filmed and delivered a\u00a0blunt assessment\u00a0on camera in Farsi.<\/p>\n
\u201cIran is done. Iran is done,\u201d he said. \u201cIran didn’t care for its own people and now people aren’t supporting Iran. The situation is so messed up \u2026 only God can help.\u201d<\/p>\n
For the past two days, CBC News has been speaking with Iranians who recently left, including those who were at the border, and those who had relocated to the Turkish city of Van, 100 kilometres away. Those who shared their thoughts spoke often of fear, resolve and a hope that out of all of this, there will be peace. <\/p>\n
Since Saturday, Iran has been hit by a wave of airstrikes from the U.S. and Israel, targeting the country’s military, defence systems, navy and its top echelon of political leaders. On March 1, Iran’s state media confirmed that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had been killed, creating uncertainty around the future of the regime overall. <\/p>\n
WATCH | Fear remains for Iranians:<\/p>\n
Khamenei may be dead, but fear still persists, Iranian says<\/p>\n
An Iranian woman who fled Tehran during the January protests spoke of her hopes and uncertainty following the killing of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.Window into Iran<\/p>\n
Many Iranians whom CBC News interviewed feared speaking publicly. Often, when they agreed to interviews, they often requested that their name or image be withheld because they feared facing reprisal. Iran\u2019s brutal clerical regime frequently imprisons and kills those seen to be expressing dissent.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Hundreds are crossing the border<\/a> every day, including those who are returning to the country from abroad, and had to make the journey in by vehicle as the airspace over Iran has been closed.\u00a0<\/p>\n Many of those who are leaving have dual citizenship or family or business opportunities abroad.<\/p>\n On Monday afternoon, a young Iranian man told CBC News his father was going to leave Iran on business, but the entire family decided to join him in Turkey because of what he called the \u201cdomestic situation.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThings are hard,\u201d said the man, who said he only wanted to be identified by his first name, Sam. <\/p>\n They had left their family home in Tabriz, Iran, in the middle of the night.<\/p>\n “[The city] is, like, half-open, but the main hours of the day, people are staying at home, because they’re scared, of course.\u201d<\/p>\n An Iranian American, who only wanted to be identified as Bridget, said she was scheduled to fly out of Tehran just as the U.S. strikes began. She was already on the plane when the pilot announced the flight would be grounded and everyone needed to get off.\u00a0<\/p>\n It took her two days to reach and cross the border. Once she got there, she said she joined a small crowd of Iranians waiting to leave.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cPeople were actually asking me, you know, \u2018The United States not gonna win, is it?\u2019\u201d she said.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd I really thought they were joking\u2026. I mean, we just have to see what the losses are here.\u201d<\/p>\n Mounting strikes and deaths<\/p>\n It is difficult to get an accurate and verified\u00a0picture of what is going on in the ground in Iran because the internet has been largely cut off, the media is controlled by the state and few journalists are allowed in to report. But the Iranian Red Crescent, a humanitarian organization working in the country, said that more than 550 people have been killed since the strikes began early Saturday morning.<\/p>\n On Monday, the U.S. military said it had hit 1,250 targets, while U.S. President Donald Trump warned during an interview with CNN that \u201cthe biggest wave\u201d in its war with Iran hadn\u2019t yet begun.\u00a0<\/p>\n Trump had been threatening<\/a> to strike Iran for several weeks.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n After mass protests erupted in the country at the end of December, leading to ruthless crackdown and the deaths of thousands, Trump told Iranians to keep protesting, promising that \u201chelp was on the way. \u201c<\/p>\n The missiles have already killed dozens of high-ranking officials including the long-ruling Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. A 23-year-old Iranian told CBC News that was when her hands started shaking.<\/p>\n She was caught up in a wave of emotions, she said: fear for her family in Iran, and also joy that the war could mark the beginning of the end of Iran\u2019s ruthless regime.\u00a0<\/p>\n WATCH | What one man from Tabriz thinks: Iranian man crossing the border says people are afraid<\/p>\n An Iranian man from Tabriz says shops are closed and people are staying close to home because of the bombings. <\/p>\n The woman, who CBC News spoke with in Van, asked not be identified. She fled Tehran in January during the protests when she said authorities were firing into crowds killing indiscriminately.\u00a0<\/p>\n She said some of her friends disappeared for days and returned with bruises on their bodies, after having been detained.<\/p>\n \u201cI left Iran when I saw these things happening. Even when you stayed at home, it was still really scary,\u201d she said to CBC News during an interview in Van, Turkey.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cYou could hear the sounds, you could see everything was on fire.\u201d<\/p>\n ‘We all aspire to be free’<\/p>\n The woman had pre-purchased a bus ticket to return to the country on Monday as she didn\u2019t want to overstay her 90-day legal limit in Turkey, but she said her mother called and urged her to continue staying away.\u00a0<\/p>\n With the internet down, she has been unable to communicate with most of her friends. She hasn\u2019t been able to reach her family through the phone lines, and has only been able to talk to them when her mother calls her phone. <\/p>\n \u201cThe last time I talked to my friends.\u2026 They were telling me it’s over. It’s the end. We are going to have a really big celebration,\u2019\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cBut I don’t really know what’s going to happen yet, because it won’t end with just Khamenei dying. <\/p>\n “The whole regime has to fall. \u201c<\/p>\n In the months before Khamenei\u2019s death, there were reports<\/a> that he was working on a succession plan. On Sunday, Iran formed a council<\/a> to assume leadership duties and govern the Islamic Republic until a new supreme leader can be chosen.<\/p>\n In a pre-recorded video address announcing the start of the operation that Washington has dubbed \u201cEpic Fury,\u201d Trump told Iranians they were about to have an opportunity to \u201ctake over\u201d\u00a0 their government,\u201d adding that it could be their only chance for generations.<\/p>\n The 23-year-old said many of the people she knew were waiting for Trump to do something. Now that the U.S. is striking the country, she believes it will only be a matter of time before people rise up again, like they did in January.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThey will come back. They are just waiting for a signal,\u201d she said.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe really don\u2019t know about the future; we only want this regime removed. We all aspire to be free.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Omid Golabkesh dragged his suitcase down a long hallway marking the exit of the Kapikoy border crossing in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":510784,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-510783","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/510783","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=510783"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/510783\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/510784"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=510783"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=510783"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=510783"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/1772509569_994_default.jpg\")
A young man, who only wanted to be identified as Sam, at the Kapikoy border crossing with his mother after leaving the families home in Tabriz, in northern Iran. (Briar Stewart\/CBC News)<\/p>\n![\"Aftermath](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/1772509570_690_default.jpg\")
Aftermath of an Israeli and the U.S. strike on a police station, amid the U.S.-Israel conflict with Iran, in Tehran on March 2. (Majid Asgaripour\/West Asia News Agency\/Reuters)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/1772509570_7_default.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"This](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/1772509570_100_default.jpg\")
This 23-year-old Iranian woman fled the country during the mass protests in January, and believes it is too dangerous to return now. She didn’t want to be identified as she was criticizing Iran’s regime. (Adrian Di Virgilo\/CBC)<\/p>\n