Thousands of people are out on the streets at several locations in Sudan’s capital, Khartoum, calling on the country’s longtime ruler to step down, according to videos circulating online and activists.

The demonstrations are the latest in a wave of unrest that began December 19 across most of Sudan, first to protest worsening economic conditions but soon to demand an end to Omar al-Bashir’s 29-year, autocratic rule.

Today’s demonstrations began in more than a dozen of the capital’s residential neighborhoods and in at least six cities across the country, with numbers in each protest varying from scores to the low hundreds.

In response, security forces in Khartoum have sealed off main roads to keep protesters on side streets and used tear gas to disperse them, said the activists, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.

They are chanting “Just leave!” — which is fast becoming the uprising’s definitive slogan and already is a Twitter hashtag used by activists — and “Freedom, peace and justice.”

Al-Bashir, who led a 1989 military rule that toppled a freely elected but ineffective government, has repeatedly said that any change of leadership could only come through the ballot box. Already one of the region’s longest serving leaders, he is expected to run for another term in office next year.

— AP