MADRID, Jan. 23 (UPI) -- Spanish and immigrant youths over the weekend violently clashed near Madrid, highlighting integration problems in Spain.
On Saturday, some 50 Spanish youths fought an equal number of Latin American gang members in Alcorcon, a suburb city of Madrid with some 165,000 inhabitants.
Police arrested seven Latinos of different nationalities, collecting knives, baseball bats and even a saber in the process, Spanish media reported. Several kids had to be hospitalized.
The next day, nearly 1,000 Spanish youths rampaged through Alcorcon looking for the immigrants, chanting death threats and violent slogans.
The youths hurled stones when approached by the police, who fired back with rubber-coated bullets. Two youths were arrested.
The clashes highlight growing tensions between Spain's large Latin American population and indigenous youths, who blame the immigrants for a rise in violent crime.
Some 350,000 Latin Americans live in and around Madrid, a greater metropolis area of nearly 6 million people.
