Warning: This story contains details which some readers might find distressing.

An Iranian woman who witnessed the bloody crackdown on protests in Iran has described how her neighbourhood turned into a “war zone” as security forces opened fire at crowds with live ammunition.

A government-imposed internet blackout in Iran, now in its third week, has prevented many accounts of what has happened from reaching the wider world.

But some Iranians who have left the country have been able to share what they have seen.

Parnia, who lives in London, told the BBC that she was visiting her family in the central city of Isfahan when the protests broke out in the capital, Tehran. They quickly spread across the country, and within days there were hundreds of protesters in the Hakim Nezami and Khaghani neighbourhoods of Isfahan.

“There were women and men from seven to 70 years old,” she said. “On just one street there were 200 to 300 people. People were chanting ‘Death to the dictator’ and ‘Long live the shah’.” The “dictator” was Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and the shah a reference to Iran’s late last monarch, overthrown in the 1979 Islamic revolution, and his son, the exiled Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi.

Isfahan has seen protests and crackdowns down the years. But Parnia said she had never seen anything like what happened during the recent unrest, which was sparked by anger over the collapse of the Iranian currency.

First, security forces fired tear gas at the protesters, she said. Then they formed a line and fired birdshot.

“I saw people getting shot and falling down, and I saw blood on the street.”