The streets of Algiers are deserted following clashes between Chinese and Algerian traders, but the tension is palpable despite comments by Beijing’s envoy describing the unrest as an isolated incident.
“I thought I was going to die,” said Abdelkrim Salaouda, sitting on a chair in front of his shop selling household electrical goods in the city’s Bab Ezzouar quarter, 15km from the city center.
According to Salaouda, the clashes broke out over a dispute on Monday afternoon between a Chinese man and a young Algerian who was accused of having parked his car near his shop.
PHOTO: AFP
His brother came to his aid, but around 50 Chinese men, armed with swords, knives and iron bars then set upon the Algerian traders in support of their compatriot, residents said.
“I was going toward my neighbor’s shop when a group of Chinese attacked me and gave me a thrashing,” said Salaouda, whose head was still wrapped in a bandage.
“At the hospital I had to have seven stitches,” he said.
“The Chinese have taken advantage of the kindness of the Algerians. They were accepted despite their faults, today they are attacking us,” added one of Salaouda’s employees, Mounir.
“They drink alcohol in front of their shops and in full view of the Algerians and often parade about in shorts in the area. This sort of behavior is against our religion and our culture,” said Abdellah, another resident.
Since Monday police cars have been patrolling the area along with plainclothes officers.
Salaouda believes that the Chinese traders might now, however, be regretting their behavior after they suggested mediation in order to sort out their differences amicably.
“We don’t want them here any more. The only thing for them to do is to go back to China,” he said, surrounded by dozens of neighbors who nodded in agreement.
The residents had also signed a petition to the authorities calling for the Chinese to be asked to leave, he added.
The usually bustling area was deserted on Wednesday.
All the shops belonging to the Chinese traders were closed and none had appeared in public since the incidents, locals said.
“They are afraid of possible reprisals. On Monday evening young people from neighoring areas attacked four or five shops belonging to the Chinese,” said another man speaking on condition of anonymity.
The police had to intervene late in the evening, he said.
China’s embassy in Algiers on Wednesday played down the clashes as an isolated incident unrepresentative of normal relations.
“This isolated incident does not reflect the relations between Algerians and Chinese,” an embassy spokeswoman said, adding that China “had confidence in the Algerian police” to shed light on the violence.
Chinese traders have flooded the North African country, selling goods at cutthroat prices and sparking growing local resentment.
When a hiker fell from a 55m waterfall in wild New Zealand bush, rescuers were forced to evacuate the badly hurt woman without her dog, which could not be found. After strangers raised thousands of dollars for a search, border collie Molly was flown to safety by a helicopter pilot who was determined to reunite the pet and the owner. A week earlier, an emergency rescue helicopter found the woman with bruises and lacerations after a fall at a rocky spot at the waterfall on the South Island’s West Coast. She was airlifted on March 24, but they were forced to
HIGH HOPES: The power source is expected to have a future, as it is not dependent on the weather or light, and could be useful for places with large desalination facilities A Japanese water plant is harnessing the natural process of osmosis to generate renewable energy that could one day become a common power source. The possibility of generating power from osmosis — when water molecules pass from a less salty solution to a more salty one — has long been known. However, actually generating energy from that has proved more complicated, in part due the difficulty of designing the membrane through which the molecules pass. Engineers in Fukuoka, Japan, and their private partners think they might have cracked it, and have opened what is only the world’s second osmotic power plant. It generates
Showcasing phallus-shaped portable shrines and pink penis candies, Japan’s annual fertility festival yesterday teemed with tourists, couples and families elated by its open display of sex. The spring Kanamara Matsuri near Tokyo features colorfully dressed worshipers carrying a trio of giant phallic-shaped objects as they parade through the street with glee. The festival, as legend has it, honors a local blacksmith in the Edo Period (1603-1868) who forged an iron dildo to break the teeth of a sharp-toothed demon inhabiting a woman’s vagina that had been castrating young men on their wedding nights. A 1m black steel phallus sits in the courtyard of
Hundreds of Filipinos and tourists flocked to a sun-bleached field north of Manila yesterday, on Good Friday, to witness one of the country’s most blood-soaked displays of religious fervor, undeterred by rising fuel prices. Scores of bare-chested flagellants with covered faces walked barefoot through the dusty streets of Pampanga Province’s San Fernando as they flogged their backs with bamboo whips in the scorching heat. Agence France-Presse (AFP) journalists said they saw devotees deliberately puncturing their skin with glass shards attached to a small wooden paddle to ensure their bleeding during the ritual, a way to atone for sins and seek miracles from
RSS