KHARTOUM - Sudanese police on Wednesday kept up a 12-day crackdown against anti-regime demonstrators, witnesses said, despite concerns raised by the United States and Britain.
Students in the eastern town of Kassala took to the streets for a second day in a row, witnesses said.
About 100 young people, carrying pictures of an allegedly detained colleague, marched against high food prices until riot police confronted them with tear gas, they said.
Rights groups say scores of people have been arrested since the protests against inflation began on June 16 at the University of Khartoum.
They quickly spread to include a cross-section of the population in numerous locations throughout the capital and several other parts of Sudan.
Demonstrators in groups of 100 or 200 have burned tires, thrown stones and blocked roads in a growing call for regime change, which has been met by police tear gas.
"Sudan should end the crackdown on peaceful protesters, release people who have been detained, and allow journalists to report freely on the events," New York-based Human Rights Watch said on Wednesday.
"While many of those arrested were released after hours or days, Sudanese groups following the situation estimate that more than 100 people are still in detention," the watchdog said.
US State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said on Tuesday that "arresting and mistreating protesters" will not solve Sudan's economic crisis.
"There have been reports of protesters being beaten, imprisoned and severely mistreated while in government custody. We call for the immediate release of those detained for peaceful protest," she said.
Britain's minister for Africa, Henry Bellingham, called for "the immediate release of those detained while engaged in peaceful protest and for the security forces to act with restraint and avoid the use of force."
Protests by tens of thousands in 1964 and 1985 helped bring about the downfall of the Sudanese regimes then in office.
President Omar al-Bashir, an army officer who seized power in June 1989, has called the latest protests small-scale and not comparable to the Arab Spring uprisings against regional strongmen over the past year.
