dpa
Athens
Cypriot leaders met on Saturday to address a right-wing protest against refugees and migrants that erupted into violence in the Cypriot port city of Limassol.
Some 350 hooded rioters attacking migrants and their businesses on Friday evening.
Members of the group threw incendiary devices and stones, and set fire to garbage cans, the Cyprus Times newspaper reported on Saturday. Police deployed tear gas in reponse and made 13 arrests.
At least five people were injured in the clashes with what media described as right-wing extremists.
Last weekend, similar attacks targeted mainly Syrian migrants in the small town of Chlorakam, prompting security forces to use tear gas and a water cannon. More violence ensued on Monday night.
In Friday’s incident, television footage showed passers-by running for safety while the hooded men rampaged with chants of “migrants out of Cyprus.” Later in the evening, Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulidis spoke of “shameful images,” the RIK broadcaster reported.
On Saturday morning, an emergency meeting was held in the presidential building with the relevant ministers and heads of the police, civil defence and fire service.
According to the Interior Ministry, refugees and migrants now make up 6 percent of the population. The small Mediterranean island republic also records by far the most asylum applications per year in the EU, measured by population size.
Refugee camps on Cyprus are overcrowded and in many places ghettos have formed where people live in poverty. The far-right groups justified their violent actions on these conditions. Cyprus has been divided since 1974 after a Greek coup and a Turkish military intervention.
