Anti-regime protests in the Iranian capital, Tehran, have divided the city in recent days, a resident told CNN on Tuesday, with some people fleeing amid the deadly unrest while others race home after work to get changed before taking to the streets.
The resident, who asked to remain anonymous due to security concerns, told CNN that the daytime is eerily quiet before protests resume at night.
“You’ll speak to people working in the coffee shops and they’ll say they finish their shifts at 6, then go home, change and take to the streets,” the source said.
Even though protests have become less intense since the weekend, the situation in the city remains dire, the resident said, adding that some hospitals are at capacity and cemeteries are turning people away due to overcrowding.
“The first two nights of the big protests — Thursday and Friday — were huge,” said the resident. “People of all ages came out — young people with their parents, all walks of life, all parts of the city.”
“Saturday got really, really violent, and that’s when you saw a lot of people go home and stop going out,” the resident said.
Fed up with the status quo, some people are attending the anti-government protests on their own, so they can more easily run away from authorities without fear for the safety of friends or family members, according to the resident.
“There are people who are armed with knives and other types of weapons,” the person said.
The demonstrations appear to have some level of coordination, the resident said, and “the front row/line of the protests includes organizers and leaders who are coordinating locations, start times, how to close off roads and seem to be leading some of the vandalism and violence.”
Meanwhile, other protesters are speculating whether the violence is being fueled by the Iranian regime itself, or by foreign powers, the resident added.
But most people are just fed up with the domestic situation in Iran, the resident said.
“The situation is really, really dire; people are hungry and angry,” the person said. “Life is unaffordable for the rich, let alone for poor and lower-class people.”