Tens of thousands of protesters have rallied two months after a military coup in Sudan, demanding that soldiers "go back to the barracks" and calling for a transition to civilian rule.
Waving flags, beating drums, dancing and chanting, crowds marched on the streets of Khartoum despite severed communications and a heavy presence of security forces who later fired tear gas to disperse them.
An AFP journalist saw injured people being evacuated by demonstrators.
The Doctors' Committee, part of the pro-democracy movement, reported that security forces fired tear gas into hospitals, attacking doctors as well as the wounded.
Officers had earlier barricaded bridges connecting the capital to suburbs, cut phone lines and restricted internet access ahead of the planned protests.
At least 48 people have died in crackdowns during , according to the committee, and Khartoum's state governor has warned that security forces "will deal with those who break the law and create chaos".
Demonstrators converged on the presidential palace in Khartoum, the headquarters of the military government in control since General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan seized power on October 25.
Mr Burhan held civilian leader Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok effectively under house arrest for weeks.
After international pressure including a cut-off of vital aid, Mr Burhan reinstated him on 21 November 21 under a deal promising elections for July 2023.
The move alienated many of Mr Hamdok's pro-democracy supporters, who dismissed it as providing a cloak of legitimacy for Burhan's coup.
"What happened on 25 October was a coup ... and we will not stop demonstrating until we have a civilian government," a masked woman protesting near the presidential palace told AFP on Saturday.
Sudanese security forces fired tear gas to disperse protesters. Source: AP
Othman Mustafa, a 31-year-old demonstrator, added: "We don't just want the military out, we want to choose our own Sudan that looks like us, that responds to our demands and gives everyone equal rights".
As well as rallies in Khartoum and its suburbs, protesters also marched on the streets of Wad Madani, a city around 150 kilometres to the south, witnesses said.
Security forces with cranes used shipping containers to block the bridges across the Nile River connecting Khartoum to the sister cities of Omdurman and North Khartoum, and web monitoring group NetBlocks reported mobile internet services cut at sunrise on Saturday.
Activists reported the arrest of several colleagues from Friday night onwards, and Volker Perthes, the United Nations special envoy to Sudan, urged the authorities to "protect" the protests, not prevent them.
"Freedom of expression is a human right," Mr Perthes said on Saturday, adding that it includes "full access" to the internet.
Sudanese protesters clashed with security forces. Source: EPA
"No-one should be arrested for his or her intention to protest peacefully," he said.
Sudan, one of the world's poorest countries, has a long history of military coups, enjoying only rare interludes of democratic rule since independence in 1956.
More than 14 million people, roughly a third of Sudan's population, will need humanitarian aid next year - the highest level for a decade, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
Activists say more demonstrations are planned for 30 December.
