In the early hours of Friday, a group of 15 hooded individuals forced entry into a house in Porto where a group of immigrants live, most of them Algerians, and attacked those present with sticks. Two of the victims had to receive hospital treatment.
On the same night, Porto’s PSP recorded two other attacks on public roads against Maghrebi immigrants, admitting the spokesperson for that metropolitan command, António Veiga, that the situations could be interconnected. “Now we have to wait for the investigations to unfold”, he highlights.
The episodes are reported this Saturday by Newspaper and were confirmed to the PÚBLICO by an official source from the PSP Porto Metropolitan Command, who provided several details about the events. The spokesman for that command, António Veiga, considers, however, premature to talk about “racist motivations”. It confirms a climate of tension in the area of Campo 24 de Agosto/Bonfim, where the house targeted by the attack is located, and where since February and until about a week ago, 20 foreign citizens, most of them Maghrebians, were detained, who will essentially be involved in situations of robbery and theft.
The first attack against immigrants occurred in the early hours of Friday and was registered at 0:40 am in Campo 24 de Agosto. Two Algerians complain that a group of five Portuguese people who were traveling in a car stopped next to them and attacked them with baseball bats. The police went to the scene and recorded the incident, which states that the victims were taken to Hospital de São João.
A little later, at around 1 am, just a kilometer away, a group of 15 individuals forced their way into a house on Rua do Bonfim, where a group of immigrants, mostly Algerians, lived, and attacked those present with sticks. The attackers then fled on foot.
A third case occurred at 3:15 am, in the Batalha area, where a Moroccan citizen was attacked by a group of men who also stole his cell phone.
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