Immigrant stabbing prompts S.Spain riot, 6 arrests

A Civil Guard statement said Sega S., 24, was stabbed on Sunday night and died from his injuries early on Monday. Police arrested three Moroccans, one of them the suspected killer.

Rioting immigrants set fire to cars, shops and rubbish containers in a town in southern Spain overnight after a Malian was stabbed to death while being mugged, police said on Monday.

A Civil Guard statement said Sega S., 24, was stabbed on Sunday night and died from his injuries early on Monday. Police arrested three Moroccans, one of them the suspected killer.

After the stabbing, a score of angry sub-Saharan immigrants gathered in La Mojonera, in southern Almeria province, and started fires in shops and rubbish bins.

Police in riot gear were deployed to quell the riot and arrested two men from Ivory Coast and one from Guinea Bissau.

There were similar riots in September in nearby Roquetas de Mar after a Senegalese man was stabbed to death when he tried to intervene in a dispute.

Many emigrants from sub-Saharan Africa drown or die of exposure trying to cross the Straits of Gibraltar to Spain aboard small vessels and flimsy rafts in the hope of finding a better life in Europe.

Some five million of Spain's 45 million population are immigrants, many of whom found work in a 12-year construction boom that has collapsed in the last year.

Spain's unemployment rate is now the highest in the European Union, and the government has said it will pay unemployed foreigners to go home, an offer few seem to have taken up.



News Source © 2008 Reuters
Text within the news headline and/or news body may be subject to copyright.Barcelona Reporter.com does not claim copyright to any such text.unless it is written by one of our reporters :
Please refer to the URL-referenced web page (the ‘Article Source’) for further information and details of the original source from the Barcelona Reporter.com web site. Copyright remains with the original copyright holder