Police in Britain on Saturday arrested nine people as pro and anti-immigration protests in the English Channel port town of Dover spilled over into violence.
Far-right and left-wing protestors held rival demonstrations, but police in riot gear and dog handlers were forced to intervene when bricks and smoke bombs were thrown.
The local Kent police said in a statement that one person had suffered a broken arm and five others suffered “minor injuries.”
Photo: AP
Three men were arrested — one on suspicion of possessing an offensive weapon, a second for allegedly breaching the peace and a third suspected of a public order offense.
Dover, one of Britain’s main ferry ports and located on the southeast coast, is a prime destination among refugees at camps around the French town of Calais, 34km across the sea.
More than 1 million migrants and refugees, many from Syria, crossed into Europe last year, causing the continent’s worst refugee crisis since World War II.
Britain has opted out of EU quotas for taking migrants, but has said it would take 20,000 refugees from camps on Syria’s borders by 2020.
Earlier on Saturday, a further six men were arrested at a highway service station in Maidstone, northwest of Dover, for alleged violent disorder in an incident that police think was linked to the protests.
Six people were injured and a number of vehicles were damaged, officers added.
Anindya Battacharyya, who was traveling with an antifascist group to Dover, told the Guardian he was inside the service station when the violence broke out.
“The service station staff bolted the doors and through the windows we could see a large group of fascists,” he said.
“They attacked one of our coaches and smashed up the windows and one of them came and daubed a swastika in blood on the side of one of the coaches,” he added.
In total, more than 20 weapons were seized in Dover and at the service station including a knuckle duster, hammers and bricks, police said.
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