Iranians mark Persian new year with heavy hearts as war cuts contact with loved ones

Shayan Ghadimi talks with customers in her restaurant in Paris, Thursday, March 19, 2026. (AP Photo/Alexander Turnbull)

PARIS — When Iran erupted in nationwide protests at the end of 2025, Shayan Ghadimi’s mother returned to the country from Paris to see the uprising for herself.

Her absence — and the struggle to stay in touch through the bloody crackdown that followed and now the Iran war — hang over the family. Like many Iranians outside the country, they will mark the normally festive Persian new year, known as Nowruz, with heavy hearts — or not at all.

Ghadimi’s 70-year-old mother had watched the early protests on TV. “We could see the market closed, the people in the street. She said, ‘I want to be there,’” the 41-year-old Ghadimi said of her mother, as she prepared to serve lunches in the spice-scented restaurant she runs in Paris.

“Now, she is all alone ... with no way to stay in contact, watching the sky. I cannot imagine the state she is in,” Ghadimi said.

An Iranian cultural centre in Paris that organizes music events for Nowruz says it’s in mourning. In the United States, some Iranian American communities also cancelled or scaled back festivities.

Nowruz, or “new day” in Farsi, coincides with the spring equinox and is celebrated from Afghanistan to Turkiye. Iranians of diverse faiths mark Nowruz — which is rooted in Zoroastrian tradition dating back millennia — despite occasional efforts by hard-liners to discourage it.

Celebrating together for comfort

Shakiba Edighoffer, grocery shopping in Paris for Nowruz, said she and Iranian friends are on a “kind of emotional roller coaster” as the war rages. Israel and the United States are attacking Iran’s leaders and military while the Islamic Republic fires missiles and drones at Israel and Gulf Arab states.

“You hear news about this or that leader of the Islamic Republic being eliminated … about executions or bombings,” the makeup artist said.

With communications largely severed, trying to find out how family and friends are faring under bombardments is stressful.

Celebrating Nowruz “helps us cope, at least a little, with the psychological pressure,” Edighoffer said. “All these oppressors want is for us to be sad, to forget our millennia-old Persian and Iranian traditions.”

“We must not give them that victory.”

In Tehran, little celebration

Too scared to venture far from her Tehran neighbourhood, the Iranian woman said she had nearly forgotten it was Nowruz.

There are no decorations in the streets, and the only reminder was when she spotted her friend’s mother holding a hyacinth, a flower associated with spring.

“That’s how distracted I’ve been. I only found out by chance,” said the woman in voice messages to The Associated Press, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.

The traditional family shopping trip to the market about 9 kilometres (5 1/2 miles) away, was out of the question, she said.

So for the traditional new year spread, Haft-Seen, she had to use what was available at home. A central tradition of new year celebrations, Haft-Seen involves seven items that include garlic, vinegar, sumac, apples and sprouting greens — symbolizing new beginnings and hope.

“Why do you want to set it up, just forget it!’” the woman recalled her mother saying. But determined to distract from the grim mood, the family made do.

When it was all over, one tradition remained the same. She and her mother burned espand — aromatic seeds — meant to ward against the evil eye.

Tears of anguish and of joy

Some of the diners who come to Ghadimi’s Paris restaurant for flame-grilled kebabs and spiced rice to celebrate hope the war will bring a new dawn. Other can’t see past the deaths and destruction wrought by Israeli and U.S. strikes.

“I have people in tears. I have people who cry for joy. They say, ‘Did you see? They are coming. We are going to be saved.’ Others say, ‘Our country is being destroyed,’” she said.

Since her mother returned to Iran in January, they’ve only managed to speak to each other twice.

“Quite honestly, I don’t try anymore. Because it stresses me out, if I try calling and can’t get hold of her,” she said. “My sister calls 100 times a day and can’t reach her.”

Her mother had a return ticket and had promised to be back for Nowruz.

But when they last spoke, about a week ago, her mother said those plans had changed. Having lived through the 1979 Islamic Revolution, she wants to see Iran’s next chapter.

“I am staying here until the end,” her mother told her.

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Associated Press journalists Sarah El Deeb in Beirut, John Leicester in Paris and Sahar Ameri in Berlin contributed.

Alex Turnbull And Catherine Gaschka, The Associated Press