Concerns have been raised about the safety of prisoners in Iran, including at least 48 Christian prisoners of conscience, as the war with the United States and Israel continues.

Amnesty International said on Saturday that the “targeting of security facilities where detainees are held” and the Islamic Republic’s “refusal to release all those arbitrarily detained and grant humanitarian release to others imprisoned is knowingly placing those prisoners at risk of death or serious harm”.

“Some prisoners have been transferred to unidentified locations or areas near potential military objectives, intensifying concerns for their safety,” the organisation added. “Authorities are also subjecting prisoners to enforced disappearance and denying them access to adequate food and water.”

BBC Persian reported last week that prisoners were shot at after one prison, the Greater Tehran Penitentiary, was damaged following a strike.

“The administrative building was severely damaged, windows were broken, and several prison walls were destroyed,” a BBC source said. “All the prisoners rushed out and the guards suppressed them severely, and I don’t know how many were injured or killed, because the officers were shooting heavily.”

The Center for Human Rights in Iran, meanwhile, has called for “governments worldwide and international organisations to urgently use every available diplomatic and political channel to press Iranian authorities to release all political prisoners and detainees and to ensure that no executions are carried out during this period of conflict”.

Conditions are reported to be especially dire in Evin Prison in Tehran, where at least 16 Christians are among the many prisoners of conscience. These include a number of Christians in their sixties, such as Iranian-Armenian pastor Joseph Shahbazian and Christian convert Nasser Navard Gol-Tapeh, who suffered a stroke in his solitary confinement cell last year.

According to DW Persian, “the management of Evin Prison is in serious disarray, and staff have locked the doors and evacuated some wards – a situation that has disrupted prisoners’ access to the prison store and essential items.”

Last June, Evin Prison was struck by an Israeli missile, after which prisoners were transferred to other facilities, including the Greater Tehran Penitentiary, where they were held in overcrowded rooms with unsanitary conditions.

One of the Christian prisoners at the time, Aida Najaflou, who is currently out of prison on a medical furlough after fracturing her spine, reported that she and the other female prisoners had been transferred to Qarchak Women’s Prison in “such a disgraceful manner, handcuffed”, and were “suffering without clean water, cooling, or heating, lacking hygiene and proper food, entangled and helpless”.