TUNIS, 25 January, 2021 (TON): Protestors took to streets of Tunisian cities against the police repression, corruption, and poverty on Saturday, following several nights of unrest incorporating clashes and arrests

The crippled economy and threatened overwhelm hospitals became the North African nation struggles.

The government on Saturday extended a night time curfew from 8 pm to 5 am and banned gatherings until February 14, 2021.

But demonstrators took the streets in several parts of the country, including the capital Tunis and the interior region of Gafsa, demanding the release of the people detained since January 14, 2021.

"Neither police nor Islamists, the people want revolution," chanted demonstrators in a crowd of several hundred in Tunis, where one person was wounded in brief clashes amid a heavy police presence.

Protests were also held in the coastal city of Sfax on Friday.

Much of the unrest has been in working class neighbourhoods, where anger is boiling over soaring unemployment and a political class accused of having failed to deliver good governance, a decade after the 2011 revolution that toppled long-time dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.

Economic misery exacerbated by novel coronavirus restrictions in the tourism-reliant nation have pushed growing numbers of Tunisians to try to leave the country.

Human rights groups on Thursday said at least 1,000 people had been detained.

"Youth live from day to day, we no longer have hope, neither to work nor to study, and they call us troublemakers!" said call centre worker Amine, who has a degree in aerospace engineering.

"We must listen to young people, not send police in by the thousands. The whole system is corrupt, a few families and their supporters control Tunisia's wealth."

COVID-19 is merely propaganda for the countries for its not as fatal as it is projected, leading people stress and several economies to cripple beyond the realities.