Joshua Wong, the teenage face of Hong Kong's pro-democracy movement, says he has ended a four-day hunger strike.
"Under the strong urging of the doctor, I have stopped the hunger strike," Wong, who had not eaten in 108 hours, said on his Facebook and Twitter feeds on Saturday.
The 18-year-old said he felt "extreme physical discomfort, dizziness and weakness in the limbs".
"Even if I stop the hunger strike, it doesn't mean that the Hong Kong government can ignore our demands," he said.
Wong and two young female members of his Scholarism student group announced an "indefinite" hunger strike after one of the worst nights of violence to hit demonstrations in the semi-autonomous Chinese city last Sunday.
Wong's announcement came after one of them, Isabella Lo, said she was stopping her hunger strike on Friday.
Student-led demonstrators are demanding free leadership elections, with the main protest camp continuing to block a long stretch of a multi-lane highway in central Hong Kong.
China's communist authorities insist candidates for the 2017 vote must be vetted by a loyalist committee, which the protesters say will ensure the election of a pro-Beijing stooge.
Before Wong called off the strike, the government said it would not allow a hunger strike to affect its decision making.
"As a government we won't accept any illegal actions ... or actions like a hunger strike to convince us to make any concessions," Secretary for Constitutional and Mainland Affairs Raymond Tam told reporters.
The rallies for fully free leadership elections, which are in their third month, drew tens of thousands at their height, but numbers have dwindled as public support for the movement has waned.
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