BERLIN: Clashes broke out between dozens of asylum-seekers and far-right extremists in an eastern German city, forcing police to call in reinforcements to quell the violence, police said on Thursday.

Around 20 migrant youths sparked the violence on Wednesday night in the city of Bautzen, police chief Uwe Kilz said, when they flung bottles and wooden slats at around 80 young German men and women from the far-right scene.

The right-wing extremists, many of whom were drunk, returned the abuse with stones and bottles, he added, in the latest incident to hit the small former communist town, which has been the scene of several eruptions of hostility toward refugees.

The arrival of around one million asylum-seekers in 2015 has deeply polarised Germany and fuelled a surge in support for right-wing populists AfD, which has run an anti-migrant and Islamophobic campaign.

Illustrating the tensions, a restaurant owner in northern Germany sparked a heated social media debate when he told a woman wearing a niqab to leave after she refused to remove the face veil.

Christian Schulz, the owner of the Seekrug restaurant, rejected charges of racism and defended his actions, telling Bild daily he did it “because it gives several guests an uncomfortable feeling to have fully veiled women in their midst”.

He added that he was far from xenophobic as several of his staff are foreigners — including from Turkey, Ghana, Pakistan or Egypt.

In Bautzen, police chief Kilz said the group of asylum seekers, identified as unaccompanied minors, also threw projectiles at the 100 officers sent in to stop the clashes, adding that police used pepper spray and batons to separate the groups.

The battling sides subsequently left the scene, but the far-right extremists broke up into smaller groups and chased the migrants to a refugee shelter. The migrants fled into the building, while officers formed a cordon to prevent attacks, police said, adding that three other shelters had to be protected by security forces overnight.

In a video circulating on social media, the far-right group could be heard chanting “we are the people”.

Meanwhile an ambulance sent for an 18-year-old Moroccan man, who was found with a gash on his arm, was also pelted by stones by the German extremists, said police.

The trouble had been building up over a few days, said Kilz, after young migrants had begun gathering regularly at the flashpoint downtown square called Kornmarkt over the summer.

Published in Dawn, September 16th, 2016