Dakar – Senegalese police arrested more than 70 people on Wednesday after protests tinged by violence broke out in several cities across the West African country demanding a night-time coronavirus curfew be lifted.

Witnesses added that post office buildings in Touba – the seat of the politically powerful Sufi Muslim order called the Mouride Brotherhood – were attacked.

The Senegalese media added demonstrations also occurred in Tambacounda, in the east of the country, and Diourbel, in the west.

There were 74 arrests – 29 in Touba, 38 in Mbacke, five in Tambacounda and two in Diourbel – a source close to the case said on Wednesday.

The caliph, or leader, of the Mouride Brotherhood, Serigne Mountakha Mbacke, made a rare late-night TV appearance to call for an end to the protests in Touba, Senegal's second-largest city with a population of around a million people.