HARARE, Zimbabwe – Police fought running battles until dawn Friday with supporters of a general strike called to protest a government campaign against shack dwellers and street traders.

Lovemore Madhuku, the head of the group that called the strike, said anti-riot police beat and fired tear gas at protesters and shot bullets over their heads in the Chitungwiza township south of Harare.

The violence erupted, he said, after police set up roadblocks on all routes in and out of Chitungwiza and other crowded southern township and searched people after forcing them to leave their vehicles.

Madhuku said he did not know how many people had been injured or arrested. Police could not be reached for comment.

Most businesses remained open with skeleton staffs Friday, the second day of the two-day strike. Police have the power to seize the goods and trading license of any business that fails to open.

State radio described the strike Friday as “a failed attempt to sabotage Zimbabwe’s economic turnaround.”

President Robert Mugabe criticized the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change for “sacrificing the interests of the people of Zimbabwe in a bid to serve their colonial masters,” the station reported.

The strike was called to protest a government crackdown in which police torched or demolished thousands of shacks of the urban poor and arrested at least 30,000 street vendors.