CAIRO: Thousands of students are staging a sit-in at the largest university in Sudan's capital to protest police violence against demonstrators.

Students at the University of Khartoum began protesting Wednesday to demand compensation for people displaced from their homes by construction of a dam near the city of Dammir, 175 miles (280 kilometers) northeast of the capital.

Members of a youth activist movement called Change Now say police swinging clubs and firing tear gas attacked the protesters. They also raided dormitories.

Students responded by demanding the resignation of the university president, whom they accuse of summoning the police.

The university administration has closed the campus, but students began a sit-in Friday.