Khartoum: Officials at Sudan’s main university have ended classes a week early, campus sources said on Sunday, after a series of Arab Spring-style student demonstrations sparked by high inflation.

“It is not a closure but they just made the programme [finish] quicker... instead of allowing some disturbance”, one source at the University of Khartoum said, adding that students have been told to return after Ramadan to sit for examinations.

The decision affects most colleges on the university’s main campus in central Khartoum, but satellite campuses are still in session, the source added.

The decision to cancel classes came after students on the main campus last Wednesday staged perhaps their biggest protest since unrest began on June 16.

A witness said security forces fired tear gas at the students — estimated at more than 100 — who were shouting and throwing stones. That followed a demonstration on July 8 which was also met with tear gas.

There have been other periodic protests on campus since students first voiced their opposition to high food prices a month ago.

After President Omar Al Bashir announced austerity measures, including tax hikes and an end to cheap fuel, the scattered protests spread to include a cross-section of people around the capital and in other parts of Sudan.

During their rallies the activists have repeated a call made by crowds at Arab Spring protests around the region: “The people want the fall of the regime.”

Students are also upset at the detention of a large number of their colleagues whose academic year could be at risk, another university source has said.

Public protests have in recent weeks focused on Fridays at a mosque linked to the opposition Ummah Party in Khartoum’s twin city of Omdurman. More than 30 people were arrested there on Friday when police fired tear gas and beat people, a senior opposition figure said.

Although lasting for an unprecedented month the demonstrations have not attracted the mass following, in which students played a key role, which toppled military regimes in 1964 and 1985.

Sudanese proudly point to this history which occurred long before the Arab Spring revolts, against authoritarian rulers in North Africa and the Middle East, began in December 2010.

Al Bashir has played down the demonstrations as small-scale and not comparable to the Arab Spring. He has suggested that someone was behind the protests against his National Congress Party (NCP) government.

Authorities suspended University of Khartoum classes for more than two months early this year following a student sit-in and exam boycott after a clash with police on campus in December.