Racist group invades home and attacks immigrants for half an hour in Porto. One of the victims chose to jump from the 1st floor

PSP detained one of the members of the group who was responsible for at least three incidents of attacks against immigrants last night

During the early hours of this Saturday, at least three racist attacks were recorded in the city of Porto. The first incident occurred at around 1:00 am, in the Campo 24 de Agosto area, when five men armed with baseball bats got out of a car and beat two Algerian citizens. The victims had to receive hospital treatment.

Minutes later, the second attack, as reported by Jornal de Notícias and, later, confirmed by CNN Portugal. On Rua do Bonfim, six hooded men armed with bats, knives and at least one firearm invaded a house where a group of immigrants lives.

A dozen Algerian immigrants and one Venezuelan live in the house. For half an hour, these immigrants were beaten, subjected to racist insults and the contents of the house were destroyed. While the immigrants were being attacked, one of the victims chose to jump from the first floor to escape the attacks. The housemates explained to JN that she ended up “falling into the neighbors’ courtyard”, leaving her with “a broken leg and arm”.

“I’ve never been so scared in my life”

“We were sleeping when there was a knock on the door. They shouted to open it and ended up breaking it. Then they destroyed everything. We locked ourselves in our rooms, but the doors were also broken. At the same time as they beat us, they said that we weren’t doing anything in Portugal, that we had to return to our country. I have never been so scared in my life”, explained Lakehal Zakaria, one of the tenants attacked to Jornal de Notícias.

Two hours later, the last attack took place, in the Batalha area. Nearby a restaurant kebabsa Moroccan citizen was the target of a “lynching” carried out by the same group.

Only one of the attackers was detained. During the third incident, a PSP patrol was near the restaurant and was quickly deployed to the location, managing to intercept one of the suspects. The man was detained, but first threw the bat into a trash can, and the weapon was recovered by authorities.

Jornal de Notícias theorizes that the attacks may have been motivated by the wave of robberies and robberies that have occurred in Campo 24 de Agosto and the surrounding area.