April 10, 2006 - 16 hurt, 121 arrested in soccer brawl |
| Sixteen people were injured, three of them seriously, in a brawl including gunshots between rival soccer fans of Boca Juniors and Rosario Central, police said on Monday.
Police said 121 people also were arrested after the free-for-all broke out late Sunday night near a tollbooth where the rival fan buses crossed paths not far from Rosario, about 300 kilometres north of Buenos Aires.
Three Boca fans were wounded by gunshots to the head and one other had a stab wound, police said. Other injuries were described as less serious.
"It was a real battle," police inspector Miguel Angel Rodriguez told the Associated Press by telephone from the area where the fighting broke out.
Boca Juniors fans on four buses were returning to Buenos Aires from Santa Fe after seeing Boca defeat Colon 2-1 on Sunday, police said.
Rosario's fans were returning on two buses from Buenos Aires to Rosario after seeing their team fall 2-0 to Banfield in the capital.
Rodriguez said the buses stopped near a toll plaza around midnight when trouble began.
"First they threw rocks at each other, and then things started escalating and it ended in gunshots," he said.
A police car was escorting the Rosario Central buses home but the patrol members were unable to halt the fighting and called in reinforcements, he added.
Police said they seized four guns during the arrests.
Feuding between rival soccer fans in Argentina is commonplace inside stadiums and occasionally on the streets. Since 1939, fan violence has led to 138 registered deaths and periodically forced the suspension of regular first-division play, the last time in 2003.
Before the brawl, authorities said some Boca fans had fought rival fans from Colon during Sunday's game, leaving nine injured. Police said a group of Rosario Central fans had also fought among themselves at the Banfield match, leaving two injured and 28 detained during that game. |
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