Eight people have been detained by police in Spain in connection with violent clashes that erupted between far-right groups, local residents and migrants in a south-eastern town at the weekend, officials said on Monday.
Clashes in Torre-Pacheco in the Murcia region happened on Saturday night after a 68-year-old man told Spanish media he had been beaten up earlier in the week by three men of North African origin.
That sparked a call by far-right groups to seek retribution on the area’s large migrant community, with groups armed with batons reportedly roaming the streets looking for people of foreign origin.
The motive for the initial attack on the elderly man was not clear.
Among those detained were two people allegedly linked to the attack on the elderly man and several others in relation to the weekend clashes, Mariola Guevara, the central government’s representative in Murcia, said on Monday in a post on X.
Six Spanish nationals and one North African resident were detained for the assaults, damage and disturbances, Guevara said.
The two others detained had helped the perpetrator of the attack on the elderly man, she said.
A major police presence was moved into Torre-Pacheco, including more than 75 police officers as well as Civil Guard and riot control units.
The town has a population of around 42,000 and about a third of its residents are of foreign origin, according to local government figures.
Large numbers of migrants also work in the surrounding area as day labourers in agriculture, a major driver of the regional economy.
Local media have reported that some families, mainly of Moroccan origin, have shuttered their businesses and refused to send their children to school.
The Civil Guard says it has opened an investigation to identify those responsible for messages circulating on encrypted channels and social media with calls to “hunt down immigrants.”
Fact-checking platforms such as Verifica RTVE and Newtral confirmed that many of the videos used to justify the violence had been manipulated or were fake.
Spain’s Minister of Migration, Elma Saiz, said that “Spain is not a country of immigrant hunting,” and accused the far-right of fuelling the unrest.
And in comments on Monday, Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska blamed the far-right Vox party and the conservative People’s Party for spreading messages that “have served as fuel for this situation.”
Vox took almost 19% of the vote in the last municipal elections in Torre-Pacheco and on its official X account, posted several messages blaming immigrants of North African origin for the “terror” in the town.
Spain’s Second Deputy Prime Minister Yolanda Díaz accused the party of “setting the streets on fire with racist speeches” and of “using pain to divide.”
Vox has denied any responsibility for the riots and demanded a “tough hand against illegal immigration.”
