The police action came after youths shouting “Kabila get out”, and “Kabila has to go”, threw stones at police on Lumumba boulevard, an arterial avenue in the heart of the city.

Kabila, who has ruled DR Congo since 2001, is banned under the constitution from running again — but he has given no sign of intending to give up his job in December.

No elections have been announced and it would be practically impossible to organise a poll in the time left before his mandate runs out.

Protests erupted after the Constitutional Court ruled in May that Kabila, who took power after his father Laurent Kabila’s assassination, could remain in office in a caretaker capacity beyond the end of the mandate.