Residents in Bandar Abbas in Southern Iran have burned down a hospital as they believed that patients carrying the Coronavirus had been admitted there.

Rumours started circulating that people from another town infected with Covid-19 had been admitted at the hospital.

However, the hospital’s spokesman said that was a lie and no coronavirus patients were there, according to news channel al-Arabija.

The BBC’s Persian service announced some Iranian medical sources say the number of Coronavirus deaths in Iran has reached as much as 210: six times higher than the official figure.

Iranian authorities have reported 34 deaths and 388 infected people. Most of the deaths were from the capital Teheran and Qom, which is a place of pilgrimage.

Confronted with the higher death figures, the spokesman for the Iranian Health minister said authorities were being transparent about the number of Coronavirus cases and accused the BBC of spreading lies.

An official from Qom however – where the first Iranian cases of Coronavirus were detected – previously accused the Iranian government of “not telling the truth” about the epidemic in Iran.

Sarah Johansson

The Brussels Times