As protests in Iran continue and authorities in that country have issued coordinated warnings to demonstrators, medical sources at two hospitals told the BBC that their facilities were overwhelmed with the injured.

One doctor noted that an ophthalmology hospital in the capital, Tehran, is in crisis.

A doctor at another health center indicated that they did not have enough surgeons to handle the influx of patients.

On Friday, US President Donald Trump said Iran is in “serious trouble” and warned its leadership that “they better not start shooting because we will start shooting too.”

In a letter to the UN Security Council, the Iranian government blamed the US for turning the protests into what it called “subversive violence and widespread vandalism.”

International leaders have called for the right to peaceful protest to be protected.

Anti-government demonstrations have taken place in dozens of cities.

Two human rights groups have reported the deaths of at least 50 protesters.

Overwhelmed Services

The BBC and several other international media outlets are banned from reporting from Iran, where there has been a near-total blackout of Internet access has been down since Thursday night, making it difficult to obtain and verify information. On Friday night, a doctor in Iran contacted the BBC via the Starlink satellite internet service. He indicated that Farabi Hospital, Tehran's main ophthalmology center, is in crisis, with emergency services overwhelmed. Patient admissions and non-emergency surgeries have been suspended. The BBC also obtained a video and audio message on Thursday from a doctor at a hospital in the southwestern city of Shiraz.

In the recording, the doctor indicated that numerous wounded people were being brought to that health center, but that there were not enough surgeons to handle the influx of patients.

He reported that several of the wounded had gunshot wounds to the head and eyes.

A health professional at another hospital in Tehran also told the BBC that among the injuries his patients were suffering were gunshot wounds.

Mass Arrests

Since the protests began on December 28, at least 50 protesters and 15 members of the security forces have been killed, according to the Human Rights Activists Agency (HRANA), a US-based non-governmental organization.

According to the group, more than 2,311 people have been arrested.

The Norwegian-based non-governmental organization Human Rights Iran noted that 51 protesters, including nine children, had died.

The BBC Iranian Service spoke with relatives of 22 of them and confirmed their identities.

Stephane Dujarric, spokesman for the UN Secretary-General, said the organization was disturbed by the loss of life.

“People everywhere in the world have a right to demonstrate peacefully, and governments have a responsibility to protect that right and ensure that it is respected,” the official said.

French President Emmanuel Macron, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz issued a joint statement saying that “the Iranian authorities have a responsibility to protect their own population and must allow freedom of expression and peaceful assembly to be exercised without fear of reprisals.”

“Destructive elements”

Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei appeared defiant in a televised address on Friday. “The Islamic Republic came to power through the blood of hundreds of thousands of honorable people and will not back down from those who deny that,” he declared. Later, in a message delivered at a rally with supporters and broadcast on state television, Khamenei reiterated that Iran “will not shy away from dealing with destructive elements.” Meanwhile, the son of Iran’s last Shah, Reza Pahlavi, called Friday’s protests “magnificent” and urged Iranians to continue targeted demonstrations over the weekend. “Our goal is no longer just to take to the streets. The goal is to prepare for the takeover of city centers,” said Pahlavi, who lives in the U.S.- in a video on social media.

Pahlavi, one of the most internationally recognized opposition figures, indicated that he is preparing to return to the country.

Former British ambassador to Iran, Simon Gass, told the BBC that “we really shouldn’t get ahead of ourselves” when talking about regime change.

He noted that the lack of an organized opposition within Iran means that people don’t have someone they can rally around who can present an alternative to the regime as it is.

Gass added that, however, these protests are different from previous ones, as they are bringing “a much broader protest movement than we used to see in the past,” driven by the feeling among ordinary people that “it’s almost impossible to make ends meet because of the disastrous state of the economy.”

“We will hit them very hard.”

On Friday, at the White House, Trump said that his administration is monitoring the situation in Iran with Be careful.

“It seems to me that people are taking control of certain cities that no one thought was possible just a few weeks ago,” the president said.

He repeated previous warnings made to the Iranian leadership: “We will hit them very hard, where it hurts.”

He added that any U.S. involvement did not mean “boots on the ground.”

On Thursday, Trump had said that “I have let them know that if they start killing people, which is what they tend to do during their riots (…) we are going to hit them very hard.”

On Friday, the U.S. government said that Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi was “delusional” after accusing Israel and Washington of promoting the protests.

“This statement reflects a delusional attempt to deflect attention from the enormous challenges the Iranian regime faces at home,” a U.S. State Department spokesman said in response to Minister Araghchi’s comments.

On Saturday, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio posted on the social network X that “the US stands with the brave people of Iran.”

Hardened Rhetoric

Political activist Taghi Rahmani, who spent 14 years in prison in Iran and whose wife, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi, was rearrested in December, told the BBC he doubted US support.

“We believe that foreign intervention will make the opposition dependent,” he said.

“When the opposition is dependent, you have to sacrifice national interests for that government. That will not be acceptable to the Iranian people,” he added.

Iran's security and judiciary authorities issued a series of coordinated warnings to protesters on Friday.

These warnings featured hardened rhetoric, echoing an earlier "no mercy" message from the country's main security body, the Supreme National Security Council.

That body said that "necessary and decisive legal action will be taken" against the protesters, whom it labeled "armed vandals" and "disruptors of peace and security."

The intelligence arm of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps stated that it would not tolerate what it described as "terrorist acts" and would continue its operations "until the complete defeat of the enemy's plan."

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