SKOPJE, Macedonia (AP) — Macedonian police say 27 people have been detained in a second night of riots, sparked by the fatal stabbing of a teenager by an alleged bicycle thief.
Six officers were hurt in the clashes late Tuesday, when hundreds of youths clashed with police, hurling rocks and wielding metal bars, in a suburb of the capital Skopje where the 18-year-old man was stabbed, Interior Ministry officials said.
The riots broke out Monday after a suspect was arrested and reported to be a member of the country’s ethnic Albanian minority. Police have not announced any details of the 19-year-old suspect.
A quarter of Macedonia’s 2.1-million people are ethnic Albanians. Ethnic tensions brought Macedonia to the brink of civil war in 2001 and relations between the minority and Slavic-speaking majority remain uneasy.
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