Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters filled the streets of Sudan’s major cities on Sunday in a defiant rebuke of the generals whose violent crackdown earlier in the month had left scores of people dead.

Despite veiled threats of violence from Gen. Mohamed Hamdan, the powerful paramilitary commander who led the June 3 crackdown, protesters paraded down major streets in the capital, Khartoum, banging drums and chanting, “Civilian rule.”

Some converged on the homes of protesters killed in earlier violence. Others pushed toward the military headquarters and the presidential palace, which overlooks the Nile, only to be repelled by police officers firing tear gas.

The Central Committee of Sudan Doctors said one man had been shot dead by soldiers in Atbara, a city about 200 miles northeast of Khartoum where protests first erupted in December over the soaring price of bread. A Sudanese official from the Ministry of Health said Sunday night that at least seven people had died and 181 had been injured in the day’s demonstrations, The Associated Press reported.