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

In the most violent shooting incident to be reported in decades, a 30-year-old man shot and killed 12 of his family on Saturday in a remote rural area in southeast Iran.

Ebrahim Hamidi, the head of the province of Kerman's justice department informed that the gunman opened fire on his father, brother, and other family members in the early hours of the morning in a village due to family arguments.

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

There have been sporadic shootings reported by the local media, but this attack has claimed the most lives in Iran, where people are only permitted to own hunting rifles, which are typically found in rural areas.

A former employee of a state-owned financial firm opened fire at his previous employer in 2022, killing three people and injured five more before taking his own life in the west of the nation. In a remote area in southern Iran in 2016, a 26-year-old man opened fire on ten of his relatives.

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