About 80 officers were injured in clashes between police and participants of the Kurdish culture festival in Germany’s Mannheim on Sunday, the German edition of The Local reported.
The violence erupted when security guards tried to prevent a teenager with a flag of a banned Kurdish organization from entering the festival.
Police was called in to intervene. As a result of an hours-long stand-off between 2,500 Kurds and 600 police, about 80 officers were injured by the crowd. Protestors threw stones, bottles, flares and other objects at police, who used pepper spray in response.
A total of 31 suspected attackers have been detained.
There is no information about injuries among the festival’s participants. Doctors refused to enter the area as police was unable to guarantee their security.
The Local quoted a police spokesman as saying that the “outbreak of violence was enormous.” The official said he never experienced anything similar during his 30 years of service.
