A judge in Senegal has released opposition leader Ousmane Sonko on bail after days of deadly protests sparked by his arrest last week.

“He is going home. He is free,” said Etienne Ddione, Mr Sonko’s lawyer.

Mr Sonko, 46, says charges of rape are politically motivated to stop him running again in elections in 2024.

Demonstrators scuffled with security forces outside the courthouse in the capital, Dakar, before Monday’s hearing.

Police have deployed armoured cars in the city in the wake of several days of clashes in which at least eight people were killed, including a teenager in the southern town of Diaobé – the most serious violence Senegal has seen for several years.

Mr Sonko is popular among young Senegalese, and an opposition collective known as the Movement for the Defence of Democracy has called for three days of mass protests, starting on Monday.

• Schools in the capital have also been ordered to close for a week following the unrest.

The protests have also been fuelled by economic inequalities and concerns over young people’s standard of living.

On Sunday a top Senegalese official whose job is to settle conflicts, Alioune Badara Cissé, said the authorities “need to pause and speak with our youth” and warned that “we are on the verge of an apocalypse”.

Why are these protests so violent?

Mr Sonko’s arrest is seen as a “lightning rod for much broader discontent and frustrations,” Francois Rouget of security consultancy Control Risks told the BBC’s Newsday programme.

“These [protests] come at a difficult economic time – there are lots of frustrations coming from curfews that have been imposed to tackle coronavirus, so we are seeing a lot of convergences in grievances,” he said.

Much of Mr Sonko’s support comes from the large group of young Senegalese who feel disillusioned about their prospect of finding work.

A lot of the anger is also directed at President Macky Sall, who is being accused of using the judiciary for his political aims.

Two other opposition leaders were excluded from the 2019 election after convictions which they say were politically motivated. Mr Sonko is currently the country’s only major opposition leader.

Mr Sonko was accused of rape in February. He was arrested on Wednesday as he was on his way to court accompanied by a group of supporters on charges of disrupting public order when he refused to change his route.

What has been the international reaction?

Senegal’s neighbours in the West African regional bloc, Ecowas, have condemned the violence and called on “all parties to exercise restraint and remain calm” – adding that the authorities should “take the necessary measures to ease tensions and guarantee the freedom to demonstrate peacefully”.

The UN and foreign embassies have also appealed for all sides to show restraint.