Surgeons successfully removed the bullet from her head, after which she moved to Rome. She is awaiting a prosthetic eye. In a recent telephone conversation with Kayhan Life, Elahe Tavakolian spoke about the events of Sept. 20, 2022, which turned her life upside down. “Two days after returning to Mashhad [the capital of the northeastern province of Khorasan Razavi] from my pilgrimage to Karbala [in central Iraq], I traveled to Esfarayen [Khorasan Razavi Province] to visit my family and give them some gifts,” Elahe said. “My sister and I took my twin son and daughter to the city center to buy them school supplies. Although there had been a call for a protest, and people had come out into the streets in most cities, I never thought there would be one in Esfarayen.”
