Iran’s Mahan Air continued to operate flights to and from Iran, Iraq, the United Arab Emirates and Syria from late January until late March, despite flight bans due to the coronavirus pandemic, according to a BBC investigation published on Tuesday.
Sources inside the Iranian airline told the BBC that when staff reported that dozens of crew members were showing COVID-19 symptoms, they were silenced.
The airline is under U.S. sanctions due to its links with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Meanwhile, Iran’s COVID-19 death toll rose by 78 in the past 24 hours to a current total of 6,418, Iranian Health Ministry spokesman Kianush Jahanpur said in a statement broadcast on Iranian state TV on Wednesday, according to Reuters.
The official number of confirmed cases in Iran is 101,650, even though many observers, including the head of Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency, say that the true figure is much higher—not only in, Iran but in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon.
