Students from Sierra Leone studying in China have threatened to step up their protests against what they say is their government's failure to pay them living allowances.

About thirty of them have been staying in the Sierra Leonean embassy in Beijing for the past eight days; they say they intend to prevent diplomats from returning to work next week after the Chinese New Year holiday, and to take further unspecified action if their demands are not met.

An embassy spokesman told the BBC the students had been spending their vacation at the embassy, but denied they were staging a sit-in.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service