Iranian Australians fear the crackdown on protests in their homeland will worsen and hundreds will be killed if the US launches airstrikes.

They report limited ability to contact friends and family members with the internet and social media shut down and authorities allowing international phone calls out of Iran of just one minute.

Melbourne Iranian community member Neyren* said she had been unable to contact her adult sons in Iran.

“We are really worried. Fears for what is happening in Iran fills our days and nights. We can’t think about anything else,” she said.

“My mother was able to phone me the other day to say that everyone was OK, but she was only allowed to speak for a minute until the call was cut off.

“People are suffering because of the economy. It’s becoming impossible to afford to buy food,” Neyren said.

Dr Moj Habibi, the president of the Australian Iranian Community Alliance and an Iranian Australian artist based in Newcastle, is still trying to reach her family after they joined the protests in Tehran.

“It’s been very difficult and stressful, when there is no internet, and … you don’t know what’s happening with your family, and not hearing from them,” she said.

“But we have to be hopeful and be strong.”

Dr Habibi says she has been focusing on staying positive and going for walks and meditation but feels “desperate” as she awaits news about her father, a former journalist, her three sisters and their families.

“We can’t do anything. It’s so hard to see what is going on,” she said.

Dr Habibi said most Iranians are shocked to see the regime’s use of deadly force against people who had taken to the streets demanding “basic human rights”.

“This is heartbreaking to see people are being killed just to seek their freedom. They want just the right to live without fear,” she said,

But Dr Habibi and others are worried about the possibility of US military intervention, saying the crisis is something Iranians need to “solve themselves”.

Twelve days into Iran’s communication blackout, Iranian Australian activist Mosh Hashemi received a call from his home country.

His brother told him that his family were safe. But the relief of news of his family was overtaken by horror as his brother outlined the Iranian authorities’ response to the country’s escalating mass anti-regime demonstrations.

“My brother saw many people were in front of him and he said they were just shooting everyone,” Mr Hashemi said.

“When I heard the stories, what happened to people, I was crying about the situation and what’s going on in our country.”

The protests that have swept through the country in recent weeks are among the most destabilising episodes of unrest the Iranian regime has faced in years.

While some reports state around 2000 people have been killed, other estimates put the figure as high as 12,000.

Doctors in Iran have described overwhelmed hospitals and emergency wings overflowing with protesters who had been shot. One report documented more than 400 eye injuries from gunshots in a single hospital.

US President Donald Trump has said the US “will take very strong action” against Iran if the regime starts to execute people as part of their crackdown on the spiralling protests.

“When they start killing thousands of people – and now you’re telling me about hanging. We’ll see how that’s going to work out for them,” Trump tod CBS news.

Reports say that 300 planned executions have been stayed since Trump’s threats.

(*Not her real name)