FLASH
Shkruar nga Sally Lockwood
Details on the ground from Iran are scarce after a five-day communications blackout. But a young woman who fled to Dubai tells Sky News that "everyone was being shot in the head" by the Revolutionary Guards...
"It was war."
This is how a young Iranian woman describes what she saw on the streets of Tehran before she managed to leave the country on a flight to Dubai.
What is happening inside Iran has been even more difficult than usual to verify, as the country plunged into a near-total internet blackout.
For five days, most Iranians were unable to contact the outside world. Only now are limited telephone connections starting to be restored.
This woman, who fears for the safety of family members still in Iran, asked not to be identified. For the purposes of this article, I will call her Leila.
Leila believes that what she saw and what she carried with her is information that the world urgently needs to hear.
"Everyone was shooting at her in the head," she says, describing the protests that erupted every night in her neighborhood in northern Tehran.
"I don't think they have room in prisons anymore, so they're just killing us," she adds.
Leila left Iran on Sunday evening, after several days of growing unrest that began on Thursday, when much of the country lost contact with the outside world.
Every evening, she says, protesters gathered in the streets. Others shouted from their apartment windows, "Death to Khamenei" and "Bring Reza Pahlavi," calling for the end of the Islamic Republic and the return of the Shah.
"There were lots and lots of people who were sprayed with tear gas. It burned our lips and eyes," she says.
She describes seeing a member of Iran's Revolutionary Guard point a gun at a mother sitting in a car with a small child in the back seat. The child was crying.
The woman was not shot, but the others were.
"I saw two boys near a mosque," Leila says, adding that one of them had just been shot in the head.
"We hid in a side alley. When we returned a few minutes later, the body was gone. My friend's cousin was shot five times. He died," she says.
In recent days, Iranian authorities have insisted that the situation is “under control.” State television has announced that schools, banks and businesses will remain closed this week, officially due to pollution.
During the day, she says, the streets were quieter. People spoke in low voices. She heard whispers: "Did you hear that my friend's brother died?"
In the evening, the streets filled up again.
On Friday, she says the area around Tehran University resembled a war zone. On Saturday and Sunday, protests began even earlier, around 6 p.m.
"It wasn't just young people," she says, adding that "there were elderly people, religious people, women wearing hijabs."
"Even very Islamic people were protesting and calling for the Shah's return," Leila emphasized.
She has dual citizenship and was scheduled to leave Iran this week. Her original flight was canceled.
With internet access cut off, she personally traveled to the airport on Sunday to see if she could get out.
After securing a seat on an Iranian airline, her mother begged her to delete the photos and videos she had taken of the protests. The images included bloody streets and a dead body.
At the departure gate, she says she was approached by a member of Iran's security services.
"He knew my final destination," she says, adding that "he asked me how long I had lived there and why. He asked to see my phone and looked at my photos."
"I was terrified, it seemed like he knew everything about me," Leila added.
She believes that if the images had been found, she would have been imprisoned indefinitely.
Since leaving the country, many Iranians have said they have had contact with a relative in the last 24 hours.
However, Leila has not heard from her mother since Sunday night.
Like many others now speaking from abroad, Leila says she wants international intervention - including from the United States.
"Without outside help, they just kill everyone," she says, adding that "this time, everyone is out on the streets. It doesn't matter if you're rich or poor, religious or not, old or young."
"Everyone wants these people to disappear. But it's very difficult. They have cut off the internet. They are killing people. Everyone is afraid to release the information publicly," says Leila. /Adapted from Skynews /
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