ALGIERS Two Algerian journalists were run over by a bus and killed in Algiers on Thursday when an anti-government march erupted into violence, injuring about 400 demonstrators, police said as quoted by Reuters.

The journalists were hit by a bus driven by a demonstrator which was speeding out of a maintenance garage belonging to the Algiers Public Transport Authority that had been set on fire by protesters.

The two were identified as Fatela Nedjma, a woman reporter at the ***Echourouk el Yawni*** Arabic-speaking daily newspaper, and Adel Rezou, who worked for a magazine in western Algeria.

The incident occurred as hundreds of stone-throwing protesters fought running battles with riot police who stopped them from marching towards the presidential headquarters.

Several people suffered gunshot wounds in the riot, which upset a planned march organized in protest at the government's recent bloody crackdown on riots in the Berber region of Kabylie, hospital sources said.

Organizers had expected more than one million people to attend the "march for democracy", the latest in a series of street protests to pressure President Abdelaziz Bouteflika and the powerful military leadership.

Hundreds of riot police blocked access to the main Avenue de L'independance leading up to the presidency as protesters gathered, chanting in French "Generals, Murderers" and "No Forgiveness".

Demonstrators waved black banners to mourn 52 Berber rioters killed in street clashes with security forces that have convulsed Kabylie in the past two months and spread recently to other areas.

The unrest, that also left hundreds of wounded among protesters and security forces, was sparked by the shooting in custody of a teenager at a gendarmerie barracks on April 18.

But the almost daily protests have been seen as a sign of deep dissatisfaction with a government unable to solve high unemployment in a country plagued by an insurgency that has killed more than 100,000 people since 1992.

The discontent among Berbers, who claim to be the original inhabitants of North Africa, has mushroomed into broader resentment over wider social demands like access to jobs and decent housing.