ALGIERS, (Reuters) – About 100 Algerians and Chinese migrant workers fought with knives and bludgeons in the capital Algiers, witnesses said yesterday, in an unprecedented flare-up of local anger at Chinese immigration.
Planeloads of Chinese workers have been arriving in the North African oil producer, mainly to work on state-funded construction projects, and their presence has fuelled resentment in a country where 7 out of 10 adults under 30 are unemployed.
A diplomat at China’s embassy in Algiers said about 10 Chinese were injured and five Chinese-owned shops were looted in the fighting on Monday in the eastern district of Bab Ezzouar, an area known to locals as “Chinatown”.
Local people said a confrontation between a shop owner and a Chinese motorist led to the outbreak of fighting.
“I told him not to park his car in front of my shop, but he insulted me,” shopkeeper Abdelkrim Salouda, wearing a bloodstained gown, told Reuters.
“I punched him, I thought it was over, but after 30 minutes he came back with at least 50 Chinese to take revenge. It is a miracle I am still alive,” said 31-year-old Salouda.
Witnesses told Reuters about 60 Algerian residents joined the fight.
China warned its citizens in Algeria last month about possible attacks by al Qaeda’s North African wing in retribution for a Chinese government crackdown in the mainly Muslim region of Xinjiang.
Some local people at the scene in Algiers said that Chinese migrants did not respect Muslim traditions. But there was no evidence of any direct link between the brawl and the clashes between Muslim Uighurs and Han Chinese in China’s northwestern region of Xinjiang.
