A renewed wave of U.S. military strikes against Iran has sent ordinary Iranians spiraling back into deep anxiety and uncertainty, following a brief period of relative stability during a fragile ceasefire.
Reuters reached out to Iranians through an encrypted messaging application, and those who responded described worsening economic conditions and an overwhelming sense of dread about the future.
Somayeh, a 40-year-old photographer living in Tehran, shared a photo of her weekly grocery haul to illustrate how dramatically prices have risen since before the war began — nearly doubling in many cases.
“The most important thing overall in the middle of the war is the economy. Everyday our situation is worse and more difficult,” she said.
She added: “The thing that’s the most stressful is the back and forth: one day it’s war, the next it’s peace. We don’t know what’s actually going to happen. We can’t even make plans for two days in the future.”
Like all others who spoke with Reuters, Somayeh agreed to be identified only by her first name, saying she feared retaliation from Iranian authorities if her full identity were revealed.
Amir, a 30-year-old software engineer based in Sanandaj in Iran’s western Kurdistan province, said he had just gotten married shortly before U.S.-Israeli strikes kicked off on February 28, marking the start of the conflict.
His struggles began even earlier, when Iran’s government cut off internet access during protests against the authorities in January — a move that effectively shut down his ability to work as a remote employee.
“Within a month or so when the internet was reconnected, the war began. The internet was cut off again, businesses were again severely impacted, there was a lot of trouble in my industry,” Amir said.
“I had crippling debt. There were no other pathways for me because I’m in Sanandaj and I’m a remote worker who relies on the internet. I couldn’t work at all,” he added.
Amir said he only managed to find work a few days ago — but now the fighting has intensified again. The ceasefire reached in June has given way to near-daily exchanges of attacks and counterattacks in what has now become a conflict stretching more than four months.
Nazanin, a 34-year-old psychotherapist also speaking from Sanandaj, said she once dreamed of leaving Iran to pursue a doctoral degree in psychology. But the dramatic collapse in the value of Iran’s rial currency has made that dream financially impossible.
“I could probably go to Turkey and stay for two months but I neither have the money nor the possibility to make that happen,” she said.
She also described how the fear of being separated from her family during airstrikes has changed her thinking about leaving.
“During the war, whenever I was away from my family, I would start thinking if I was hit with an airstrike, how would this affect my family?” she said. “And then I would think that if my family was killed by a bomb, what would I do? The thought of not being with them and of having the destiny of a person living alone with grief was so difficult that it impacted my idea of emigrating.”
Somayeh, the Tehran photographer, said she too once had plans to leave Iran, but the currency crisis put an end to those. Even so, she said she would choose to stay even if leaving were now possible.
“Today even if I was able to go, I don’t think I would because my life, home and family are here. Even if I was able to leave for a few months, I’d have to return and continue my life here. I don’t think I’d ever leave,” she said.
Hiwa, a resident of the city of Mahabad, said he also has no desire to leave. He views the economic suffering brought on by the war as a potential catalyst for broader social upheaval.
“The continuation of this war can activate social elements because with the continuation of the current trend of inflation, there is no conceivable alternative but street riots,” he said.
Thousands of Iranians died when the government violently suppressed the January protests. Since then, authorities have worked to prevent further unrest through arrests, executions, and a heavy security presence on the streets.
Amir described suffering from insomnia for months while he was unable to reach his father, who had been away in Iraqi Kurdistan. Yet despite everything, he said he intends to remain in Iran.
“My mom was around during the (1980-88) Iran-Iraq War and she said then that my grandfather would say that it’s ok if we died, as long as we were under our own roof,” he said.
“We don’t want to leave our home. We don’t know what it would be like to leave. Will the borders be open? Will we be let into other countries and deal with the same situation that Syrian (refugees) did?” he asked, drawing a comparison to Syrians who fled their country’s civil war, which lasted from 2011 to 2024.
