Spanish police have arrested nine people over rare anti-migrant unrest that rocked the town of Torre Pacheco, authorities 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 of the southeastern town.
Torre Pacheco mayor Pedro Angel Roca told Cadena SER radio that social media had inflamed clashes involving non-residents that saw street equipment broken and car windows smashed.
The central government’s representative in the Murcia region, Mariola Guevara Cava, said authorities had identified 80 people, “many of them with criminal records for violence. The majority of them are not from Torre Pacheco”.
Two people had been arrested for their suspected role in the attack on the elderly man, while six Spaniards and a Moroccan were held for “altercations, crimes of hate, damage, and public disorder”, she told reporters.
The Civil Guard has deployed 90 officers to quell the unrest and more would be sent, Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska told Cadena SER.
A far-right group named “Deport Them Now” had posted a message online calling for attacks against people of North African origin.
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 public broadcaster TVE that 30 percent of Torre Pacheco’s inhabitants were immigrants, mainly agricultural labourers, “who have been living in the town for more than 20 years”.
Moroccans are the most common nationality among Spain’s foreign population, numbering more than 920,000 according to latest official figures.