Dec 23, 2007, 7:41 GMT
Berlin - Two young Sudanese suffered a beating at the hands of around 15 assailants at a disco in Dresden in a racially motivated attack, police in the eastern German city said Sunday.
The assault, during which a young German who attempted to assist the Sudanese was also attacked, is the latest in a string of racial incidents that have taken place over recent weekends in the formerly communist east of the country.
The victims suffered bruises and grazes and were treated at the scene.
Police said the two Sudanese, both aged 21, were hit and kicked in front of a disco in the early hours of Saturday, while racist insults were hurled at them.
Their assailants escapted after also hitting a 20-year-old German youth who came to the aid of the Sudanese.
Police believe the attackers were part of a mob of around 100 football hooligans who had entered the disco in a group earlier.
'Apparently we are dealing with people who belong to the hooligan scene,' a spokesman said.
Two of the assailants had initially provoked the Sudanese in the disco. When the security intervened and led the two men outside, the group followed and attacked their victims.
In another attack that took place in Germany's eastern states in the early hours of Saturday, a 19-year-old girl described as a political leftist was given hospital treatment after being attacked by two men and a woman.
A police spokesman said the men, aged 24 and 27, had held their victim while their woman accomplice, aged 21, hit her in the face, calling her a 'tick.'
The men subsequently kicked their victim, and one of them assaulted her sexually. The assailants, who are known to police as members of the right-wing political scene, were detained.
The young woman gave the Hitler salute while being taken to the local police station.
The incident occurred in an open area in the town of Halberstadt in the state of Saxony-Anhalt to the south-west of Berlin.
Police said the victim could be identified as a leftist from her clothing, and that her assailants were drunk at the time of the attack.
There has been a string of attacks by rightwingers in the state, where unemployment is high, most of them on people readily identifiable as foreigners.
Four youths, aged 22 to 29, are currently facing trial on charges of assaulting a theatre troupe that was putting on the popular musical, The Rocky Horror Show.
Five members of the troupe were hospitalized after the attack on June 9.
The police probe revealed the accused had targeted the actors because they considered them to be leftwingers.
At the beginning of December, a pregnant Iraqi woman, two African men and a police officer were injured in two separate racially motivated attacks in Magdeburg, the capital of the state which was part of formerly communist East Germany.
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