Iran sees growing anti-regime protests

Thousands of people have poured out into the streets in Iran's Khuzestan province where the country's Arab minority predominantly lives, in protest of electricity and water cuts following a sandstorm.

The Southwestern Iranian city of Ahwaz is seeing its sixth consecutive day of protests, with reports indicating that Tehran deployed riot police and members of the Revolutionary Guards to suppress the protests and allegedly cut the internet to prevent communication between protestors.

Ahwaz residents have been urging the government to find a solution to the city's air pollution, which the World Health Organization (WHO) determined to be the world's most polluted city in 2015.

Ahvaz, home to around 1 million people, is surrounded by petrochemical factories that emit pollutants on a large scale.

The city is suffers from dust, water shortages and unemployment, all of which may prove hard to solve.

The city was dragged into a pollution crisis as it became the center of Iranian oil production since economic sanctions were lifted.

Residents expect Tehran to make more investments in the region to update refineries and power stations and fix ecological problems.

The issue came to the fore as opinion leaders such as actors, athletes and politicians started to discuss the issue on social media.