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Tel Aviv: The demonstrators broke through police cordons

Photo: Ilia Yefimovich / dpa

More than 150 people have been injured in serious clashes between migrants from Eritrea and with the Israeli police in the Israeli coastal city of Tel Aviv. Hundreds of Eritreans protested against the government in front of their country's embassy on Saturday, Israeli media reported. At least 19 demonstrators were seriously injured, wrote the newspaper "Haaretz", citing rescue workers.

The police said that security forces had also fired shots due to imminent danger to themselves – with rubber bullets, but also with live ammunition. In this context, »Haaretz« reports that 15 people were shot. According to the information, at least 30 police officers were also injured. Security forces had arrested 39 demonstrators. In the late afternoon, the situation is said to have calmed down again.

The demonstrators had broken through police barriers and smashed the windows of police and other cars as well as windows of surrounding shops, according to the Haaretz article. In view of this, the security forces had used, among other things, stun grenades and batons. Eyewitnesses reported that many demonstrators carried wooden sticks at the rally in the south of the city.

An event was scheduled to take place at the Embassy of Eritrea on Saturday afternoon. The demonstrators had previously asked the police to cancel it, writes Haaretz, and warned of violent clashes if this did not happen. In the end, the opponents of the government also rioted in the hall of the embassy. There have also been direct confrontations between supporters and opponents of the Eritrean government.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu instructed the police to restore order, according to his office. According to their own statements, the officials used hundreds of forces against the "lawbreakers" in Tel Aviv. The officials called for people to keep their distance from the riots.

Similar incidents have already occurred in other countries

In Eritrea, President Isaias Afwerki rules the country in a one-party dictatorship. Freedom of expression and freedom of the press are severely restricted. In addition, there is a strict system of military service and forced labor, from which many Eritreans flee abroad.

According to media reports, there are around 18,000 migrants from Eritrea in Israel. The country's authorities make no distinction between supporters and opponents of the country's government in the asylum procedure. However, asylum applications are only approved in exceptional cases. However, people are not deported to their homeland.

In Germany, too, there were riots at a so-called Eritrea festival in July with at least 26 injured police officers, when opponents of that event attacked security forces with stones and bottles and detonated smoke bombs. The German officials used, among other things, batons. The organizers of the event in Giessen were close to the controversial leadership of the East African country.

In Stockholm, there were violent riots at an Eritrea festival in August, with more than 50 injured. And also in the Norwegian city of Bergen, opponents and supporters of the Eritrean government threw stones and bottles at each other on Saturday, as the newspaper "Bergens Tidende" reported. At least one person was injured. Eyewitnesses reported that the police had also been attacked. The trigger for the riots was therefore a party of government supporters.

mbö/AFP/dpa/Reuters