Oxford Street closed as hundreds join Black Lives Matter protest in central London

'Stopping traffic everywhere. The streets are ours today'

Black Lives Matter protesters in central London on 10 July (Rex Features)

Oxford Street in central London came to a standstill on Sunday as hundreds of Black Lives Matter protesters gathered to demand justice for the killing of two black men by US police.

Demonstrators holding banners saying “black lives matter” and “no justice no peace” gathered this morning at Oxford Circus and marched down the busy shopping street towards Hyde Park.

The crowd stopped outside the American Embassy in Mayfair and chanted “hands up don’t shoot,” in reference to the killing of Philando Castile in Minnesota and Alton Sterling in Louisiana by white police officers last week.

The rally, held in solidarity with protesters in the US, follows two similar marches that stopped traffic for four hours in Brixton in south London yesterday and outside the Houses of Parliament on Friday.

“Stopping traffic everywhere. The streets are ours today,” wrote Instagram user Ezzy Anya.

Some protesters started clapping and singing Michael Jackson’s song ‘They Don’t Care About Us’.

“Any person of colour is affected,” 24-year-old Lorraine Oclaa told Refinery 29.

“Look around, there's people of all ethnicities here. We're all here to let people know that our lives matter, and we've basically shut down Oxford Street, it's incredible.”

A placard held aloft at a Black Lives Matter protest in central London on 10 July (Rex Features)

Large crowds attended a sit-in protest in Brixton’s Windrush Square until around midnight last night, with some chanting “racist police, our streets.”

Scuffles broke out at one point after protesters said a bus driver made a derogatory remark towards them. He was punched by one protester after being ushered away by six or seven police officers.

Officers then backed away from the crowd who remained in the road playing music.

The protest was one of a number organised in the UK since a shootout at a rally in Dallas on Thursday night, where five police officers were killed.

A suspect in the shooting was later killed by a police-operated explosive, and named as 25-year-old Micah Johnson.

Protests have been held in several US cities after a Minnesota officer shot Mr Castile dead while he was in a car with a woman and a child on Wednesday.

The aftermath of the shooting was livestreamed in a widely shared Facebook video.

A day earlier, Mr Sterling was shot in Louisiana after being pinned to the pavement by two white officers. That, too, was captured on video on a mobile phone.