People at the Kapikoy border crossing between Turkey and Iran, in eastern Van province, Turkey, March 2. Pavel Nemecek / AP hide caption

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Pavel Nemecek / AP

VAN, Turkey — Dazed by the sun and tired by more than a dozen hours of travel by bus, the woman from Tehran, Iran's capital, crossed into eastern Turkey.

Her first stop? Somewhere with Wi-Fi.

"I only want to make a video call and go back [to Iran.] That is it," she told NPR.

For the last month, she has been making the hours-long drive to Iran's border with Turkey every three days in order to use the internet for a few hours to contact her son, who is studying at a university in western Turkey.

Like most Iranians interviewed for this story, she requested total anonymity because she fears arrest and her assets being seized in Iran for speaking to foreign media.

Since the beginning of the war more than a month ago, Iran's government has blocked its citizens from accessing the global internet, leaving only a few phone lines and select,…