Egyptian security forces managed Sunday evening to control downtown's Talaat Harb Square and surrounding streets as student protesters fled to Abdel Moneim Riyad Square amid ongoing clashes with police, Al-Ahram Arabic website reported.

Protesters reassembled to march to Ramses Square.

Security forces gathered on 26 July Street linking Abdel Moneim Riyad Square with Ramsis, to prevent the protesters from reaching the square.

Ahram Online's reporter on the scene on 26 July Street said clashes between students and security forces are still ongoing, noting the heavy presence of security as well as the return of Armed Forces tanks after they were removed following the lifting of the state of emergency mid-November.

Protesters as well as passersby are being treated by ambulances on the scene for effects of tear gas.

The students — mostly from Cairo University — were demonstrating earlier Sunday in nearby Tahrir Square when police fired tear gas at around 1,000 protesters, forcing them to flee to Talaat Harb Square. Army tanks and police then sealed Tahrir Square.

Mostly Islamists, the students had marched to Tahrir from Cairo University in Giza where they had been protesting the death of one of their colleagues, Mohamed Reda, allegedly at the hand of the police, during a demonstration Thursday.

They held Rabaa signs (signifying sympathy with the victims of the forced dispersal of the Rabaa Al-Adawiya sit-in 14 August) and shouted anti-military and anti-police slogans.

The Freedom and Justice Party, the political arm of the Muslim Brotherhood, has called for supporters to join the protesters in Tahrir.

Meanwhile, Students of the Social Democratic Party released a statement accusing the Freedom and Justice Party, from which deposed Islamist president Mohamed Morsi hails, of disturbing the students' protest to promote its cause of reinstating Morsi.