(Bloomberg) --

At least 17 people have been killed in Iran since Friday as security forces cracked down on weekend protests in border provinces home to some of the country’s largest ethnic minorities, rights groups said.

The areas have been major flash points of unrest since nationwide protests in Iran started on Sept. 17 after the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish Iranian woman who had been detained by police for allegedly flouting the country’s Islamic dress codes. 

In Sistan-Baluchestan, a vast province bordering Afghanistan and Pakistan, at least 16 people were killed on Friday in the town of Khash, local human rights organization Haal Vash and London-based Amnesty International said. 

“We’ve confirmed 16 people including one child were killed on Friday in Khash, this was verified and corroborated by the mosque very close to where protesters were gathered,” Shirahmad Shirani Naroui, director of the Haal Vash rights group told Bloomberg.

The government hasn’t provided an official nationwide death toll since Sept. 24 when it said 41 people had been killed. It has repeatedly described the protests as riots instigated by foreign countries and has dismissed as “hypocrisy” international criticism of the violence of the security forces.

Iran’s Deadly Protests Unite a Nation Behind an Old Struggle

In Iran’s western Kurdish province, large protests were also reported in the city of Mariwan on Sunday after a Kurdish-Iranian doctoral student called Nasrin Ghaderi was beaten to death by security forces in Tehran a day earlier, according to Norway-based Kurdish rights group, Hengaw Human Rights Organization.

Bloomberg was not immediately able to confirm the reports. Iranian authorities have also been routinely blocking internet access in border areas where security forces have traditionally maintained a strong presence, making it difficult for reporters and rights groups to obtain a clear picture of the scale of the unrest and crackdown. 

Protests erupted in Mariwan after authorities prevented people in the city from attending Ghaderi’s funeral after her body was transferred there from the capital by her family, Hengaw said in a statement, adding that businesses across the town have also been on strike for the past two days. 

Residents and rights groups have said security forces have been using live, military-grade bullets against protesters in both provinces, in contrast to shotgun pellets and paintball rounds reported in larger cities like Tehran. 

Sistan-Baluchestan’s capital Zahedan was the site of the deadliest single crackdown in the protests so far when security forces shot dead at least 82 people during Friday prayers on Sept. 30. 

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