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Migrants riot in Spanish beach town after African stabbed

"Garbage bins are being burned, cars have been burned, windows have been shattered," said city councillor Manolo Garcia.

Published: 26 December 2015 09:44 CET
Migrants riot in Spanish beach town after African stabbed
Fire rages on the streets of Roquetas del Mar on Friday. Photo: YouTube screen gran
Manolo Garcia, a city councillor in Roquetas del Mar in the province of Almeria, said the killing of the 41-year-old man in the city led to protests which descended into violence in the working class neighbourhood of Cortijos de Marin.
 
“Garbage bins are being burned, cars have been burned, windows have been shattered,” he told radio news station Cadena Ser.
   
Local online newspaper Ideal published a photo of a garbage container engulfed in flames in the middle of a street near a pharmacy as well as a video of man pushing a garbage container onto a burning car.
   
Police found the body of the man from Guinea-Bissau on a street in Roquetas del Mar in the early hours of Friday. Police suspect the man was stabbed following a dispute over a traffic accident, local media reported.
   
About 30-40 people had taken part in the unrest but police have since brought the situation under control, the assistant deputy of the national government in Almeria, Andres Garcia Lopez, told Cadena Ser.
   
“At this moment the situation is back to normal,” he said.
   
Police would remain at the scene throughout the night and for the next few days to prevent any renewal of unrest, he added. No one was injured in the riot and no arrests were made, Lopez said.
   
The province of Almeria is home to a sea of plastic greenhouses that employ many migrants as vegetable and fruit labourers. It also relies on tourism but the jobless rate in the province stand at 31 percent, much higher than the already high national rate of 21 percent.
 
However, the town had a stroke of good fortune recently with around 1,600 people in the town each taking home a €400,000 share in the town's winnings from Spains' Christmas lottery. 
   
One of the lucky winners was a Senegalese man who arrived in Spain after having been rescued from a sinking boat by the Spanish coastguard.
 
In 2008 African migrants in Roquetas del Mar set fire to cars and houses, and attacked police and firefighters with stones, after a 28-year-old Senegalese man was stabbed to death.
 
 

RIOT

Dozens of police injured during riots at Berlin’s last hold-out squat

Sixty police officers were injured in riots that erupted Wednesday at one of Berlin's last squats ahead of disputed fire protection checks on the building.

Published: 17 June 2021 09:31 CEST
Dozens of police injured during riots at Berlin's last hold-out squat
Burning barricades in the Rigaer St. on June 16th. Photo: dpa | Andreas Rabenstein

Its facade covered in murals and anti-capitalist graffiti, the occupied building at 94 Rigaer Strasse is among the squats that mushroomed across the city after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Numerous attempts have been made in recent years to clear the squat, but each time they have ended in violence.

Ahead of Thursday’s planned fire protection inspection, police had declared the zone a restricted area and banned all demonstrations in the environs.

But as officers arrived on the scene to secure the area, they were met with a hail of stones flung from roofs and the street.

Firecrackers were also hurled from windows and barricades set up by far-left activists were set on fire.

Police said officers were attacked by “around 200 people from the street and from the roof with stones”.

“Material was brought on the street and set on fire,” they added on Twitter.

As water cannons were brought in to put out the fires, officers partially withdrew from the scene.

But they later returned, backed by climbing experts, who were helping them get on the roof of the building to remove stones placed there by residents, added police.

Officials have planned a heavy deployment lasting into Thursday.

Berlin’s interior minister Andreas Geisel vowed a tough crackdown on the militants, saying there can be no special treatment or a “law for Rigaer Strasse”.

Rigaer 94 has been branded by Germany’s domestic security service as the centre of Berlin’s anarchist scene.

While some want to see the counter-culture bastion wiped off the capital’s map, others have defended it as a vestige of an old Berlin rapidly disappearing as property prices and rents rise sharply.

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