Seattle, Jul 5 (IANS): A woman was killed after a car sped into a group of protesters on a closed highway in the US city of Seattle, according to officials.

The car "drove through the closure and struck multiple pedestrians", the BBC quoted a Washington State Patrol tweet as saying on Saturday.

Summer Taylor, 24, died hours later, while a second woman was seriously hurt.

The suspect, 27-year-old Dawit Kelete of Seattle, has been charged with two counts of vehicular assault.

But the police have not said whether it was a targeted attack.

There has been prolonged unrest in Seattle since the unarmed African-American George Floyd died in police custody in Minneapolis on May 25.

Protests have been widespread across the US under the Black Lives Matter movement, said the BBC report.

Saturday's incidenttook place at a southbound section of Interstate-5 that had been shut ahead of a women's march.

Part of the protest had been live-streamed on social media under the headline "Black Femme March takes I-5".