MADRID: Spanish police have arrested eight people in connection with rare anti-migrant unrest that rocked the town of Torre Pacheco over the weekend, the interior minister said on Monday.
Three nights of violence erupted on Friday after a 68-year-old man told local media three youths of North African origin had beaten him up in the street.
The southeastern town’s mayor Pedro Angel Roca told Cadena SER radio that social media had created a “breeding ground” for clashes that saw urban furniture broken and car windows smashed.
Roca denounced “groups coming trying to create violence”, while Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska told Cadena SER that law enforcement had intercepted various vehicles trying to enter the town with “dangerous items” such as sticks.
A far-right group named “Deport Them Now” had posted a message online calling for attacks against people of North African origin.
The authorities have arrested eight people, including two present during the attack on the elderly man whose role is being investigated, Marlaska said.
The other six detainees, five Spaniards and one North African, were held for assault, damage and altercations, the central government’s representative in the Murcia region, Mariola Guevara Cava, wrote on X.
The Civil Guard has deployed 90 officers to quell the unrest and more would be sent “until this concludes”, Marlaska said.
The Moroccan Association for the Integration of Immigrants said in a statement that “threats, attacks and fear in the streets must end”, demanding “real protection for the affected people”.
The mayor told state television channel TVE that 30 percent of the town’s inhabitants were immigrants, mainly of Moroccan origin, the vast majority of whom were employed in seasonal farm work.
“These are people who have been living in the town for more than 20 years”, he said.
Moroccans are the most common nationality among Spain’s foreign population, numbering more than 920,000 according to the latest official figures. – AFP
