Immigrant death sparks riot in Spanish town

Immigrants went on a rampage in a southern Spanish town overnight throwing stones and bottles at police after a Senegalese man…

Immigrants went on a rampage in a southern Spanish town overnight throwing stones and bottles at police after a Senegalese man was stabbed to death, police and Spanish media said today.

Police would only say that the killing of a man in the town of Roquetas de Mar, had sparked "altercations throughout the night in which immigrants were involved".

Spanish media said African immigrants were enraged by the death of the Senegalese man (28), who was stabbed in a fight.

Daily newspaper El Mundo's website said African immigrants threw stones and bottles at police, and burnt down two homes and two police cars. It quoted emergency services as saying that rioters set up barricades, burnt rubbish bins and cars.

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A policeman who went to the scene told national radio station RNE that firefighters were called to a false alarm and were directed by a group to where a fire was supposed to be.

"They began to throw stones at the cars...They ended up destroyed, with broken windows, dents in the doors, at the front. The only thing there wasn't was injuries," policeman Carlos Manuel Ruiz said.

Police arrested three immigrants, the media reports said.

Around a quarter of the residents in Roquetas de Mar, in the province of Almeria, are immigrants.

Reuters