The largest anti-government demonstrations to rock Iran in recent years intensified Friday night, fueling fears of growing fatalities as authorities battle to suppress the protests.   

Social media footage trickling out of Iran amid a blanket shutdown of internet and telecommunications networks showed hundreds of thousands marching and chanting anti-regime slogans across the country, with graphic scenes of bodies lying in blood. Other clips showed that the elderly made up many of the protesters.

Separate mobile-camera footage from Fardis, a city about 50 kilometers (31 miles) west of Tehran, showed at least seven bodies covered in blood inside a building. In the videos, people are seen bandaging the head and patching an eye of another individual, while a voice says at least 10 people were killed by gunfire. None of the footage could be independently verified by Bloomberg.

Security forces have arrested nearly 200 “leaders of terrorist groups,” seizing ammunition, hand grenades and Molotov cocktails, Tasnim reported Saturday, citing an informed security official. Iran’s prosecutor general warned that all detainees would be charged as an “enemy of God” — a broadly defined offense punishable by death under Islamic law in the country.

Mohammad Movahedi Azad said all “rioters” would face the same charge, “whether an individual has assisted rioters and terrorists” or “whether they are mercenaries who have taken up arms.” He said trial proceedings will be carried out without any delay and “without leniency, compassion, or indulgence,” the state-run IRIB News reported. 

The US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency said Friday that at least 65 people have been killed and 2,311 arrested since protests began on Dec. 28, when traders in Tehran protested a currency crisis and worsening living conditions. The demonstrations have since spread nationwide.

Thirty-eight of the fatalities were identified in Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari, Ilam, Kermanshah, and Fars provinces in central and western Iran, according to the Human Rights Activists group. Time magazine reported Friday that at least 217 protesters have died in Tehran, mostly by live ammunition, citing a doctor in the capital.

Internet-monitoring group NetBlocks said in an X posting that a nationwide internet blackout remained in place in Iran as of Saturday. People inside the country appeared largely cut off from international online services afternoon local time, with many users worldwide reporting they had been unable to get in touch with loved ones at home for almost two days.