"We had barely begun to come to terms with the deadly January protests, and now this new bloodshed unfolds," begins Avishan Chanani, an Iranian humanitarian consultant based in Lisbon.
Born in Iran, she left during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s. Since Israeli and American bombardments of Iran began, Avishan has been doing what Iranians across the world have been doing: refreshing her phone, scanning social media and news sites for fragments of information, and trying to reach people she loves.
On 28 February, US and Israeli forces launched strikes targeting Iran. Tehran retaliated with missiles and drones aimed at US bases and Israeli targets across the Middle East.
The war has since reportedly claimed more than 1,300 lives in Iran and about 500 in Lebanon, with additional deaths reported in several other countries across the region.
Avishan remembers how reaching her family during the January uprising had been nearly impossible; the Iranian regime had cut internet access as protests spread, and the killing intensified — Avishan's family lived through all of it.
"They told me they had never in their lives imagined such horror," she shares with The New Arab.
Now, with the war, communications have reportedly been disrupted again, and Avishan has no way of knowing whether her family is safe. "I haven't slept for days."
A complicated response
The killing of Ayatollah Khamenei two weeks ago has produced a diverse response among the Iranian diaspora. Scenes of people dancing in the streets, waving pre-revolutionary flags alongside Israeli and American ones, have circulated widely.
But many describe a far more complicated emotional reality.
Avishan has called for an immediate ceasefire, pointing to the enormous humanitarian cost. "Tehran is a densely populated, immense city of around ten million people," she continues.
"When you strike oil depots inside a city like that, you are poisoning the air that millions breathe."
Just days ago, Israeli and US airstrikes hit oil facilities in Tehran and Alborz, causing large fires.
"We still don't know how many people were killed. And the toxic fumes will damage the environment for years to come," she adds.
The voices missing from this coverage, she says, are from inside the country. "The unions, the civil society groups who have said in their statements: we are not for the regime, and we are not for foreign intervention either."
'Like poking a bear'
Asefeh Eskandari, a 38-year-old Kurdish-Iranian founder of a diversity organisation in the Netherlands, has been one of the more prominent diaspora voices in Dutch media.
Her position is layered. "I was always against intervention and believe in diplomacy. I am afraid of the destruction that Israel can inflict. But now that they have started, there is no way back, and they should finish," she tells The New Arab.
"It's like poking a bear and then walking away. The regime will vent its anger at its own people."
She is under no illusions about the actors involved. "Trump and Netanyahu are responsible for the genocide in Gaza. However, we have no choice but to use what's happening for something that could potentially benefit the people," Asefeh adds, referring to the joint US-Israeli attacks.
She also fears the conflict could be a cynical backroom deal. "I'm worried that if Trump were to withdraw now and recognise part of the existing regime, it would reveal that this was a political power play all along."
US President Donald Trump, earlier this month, encouraged Iranian Kurdish forces in Iraq to launch attacks against Iran as the Middle East conflict widened.
Asefeh, who is Kurdish herself, can imagine her community's involvement, but on their own terms. "Of course, Israel and America love that idea, because then the Kurds go first and take all the losses, like cannon fodder," she says.
She believes the regime must be sufficiently weakened before any ground troops, Kurdish or otherwise, can go in.
Her father, she says, had to be physically stopped from travelling to the Kurdish part of Iraq to join the fight. She laughs as she describes how they told him he was unfit to go, but then turns serious. "He genuinely feels that this has to happen now, and he wants to be part of it."
Her parents were political activists imprisoned under Khomeini in the 1980s. And yet, she is quick to note, life was no better for people like them under the Shah. "Everyone who belonged to minority groups or the working class had a very hard time under his rule."
This shapes her deep scepticism toward Reza Pahlavi, whose popularity has soared in the diaspora. Pahlavi, son of the Shah deposed in 1979, has lived in US exile ever since and has positioned himself as a leader for a post-regime transition.
"He said upfront that he doesn't want to work with the left, with progressive Islamic groups, or with ethnic minorities. He wants to reinstall the monarchy because 'the people want it', but the people have said no such thing," Asefeh shares.
After criticising Pahlavi publicly on Dutch radio, Asefeh received death threats from his supporters, including a message stating they knew where her daughter went to school. She temporarily left the country with her child. "I live in a free country with a functioning rule of law. I won't be silenced," she adds.
'You have to pick a side'
"I am absolutely against military attacks," says Samira, a 47-year-old Dutch-Iranian policy advisor who asked that her last name not be published to protect her family.
"You cannot bomb a country into democracy."
She observes a dangerously simplistic narrative taking hold.
"Now I see all those intellectuals saying Israel and America are the only saviours. But don't they see what has happened to Gaza and Lebanon? It's simply the history of colonialism repeating itself."
She pauses. "It seems you're not allowed to say that you oppose the Iranian government and also oppose the murderous regimes of America and Israel. You have to pick a side.
"All the reporting is framed to show Iran as the loser, but there are victims on all sides — in the Gulf region and Lebanon — and most of those killed are ordinary civilians. I find the Western narrative around the genocide in Gaza, and now around this war, nauseating. The US and Israel are often able to act with impunity," Samira adds.
Samira also criticises her own country's leaders. "In the Netherlands, there are many programmes aimed at restoring trust in government, but how can that work if our leaders stay silent? Many citizens, with or without a migration background, feel unheard in their calls to end injustice."
What all three women keep returning to is the need for recognition — not of one political position over another, but of the full, irreducible complexity of what their people are living through.
"You can't say around 90 million people think one way or another," says Samira.
When the divisions within the diaspora threaten to isolate her, she tries to hold on to what remains shared.
"I know our pain is the same."
Renée Boskaljon is a freelance journalist and migration researcher based in Morocco