Protesters camped out in the Canadian capital outnumber the police and control the situation, the city's mayor said, as a demonstration against vaccine mandates clogged parts of the city for a tenth day.

The “Freedom Convoy” began as a movement against a Canadian vaccine requirement for cross-border truckers but has turned into a rallying point against public health measures and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's government, Reuters reports.

Protesters have paralysed downtown Ottawa for the past nine days, with some participants waving Confederate or Nazi flags and some saying they wanted to dissolve Canada's government.