336,723 euros for police officers: severe conflicts between Syrians and Chechens

336,723 euros for police officers: severe conflicts between Syrians and Chechens

In July of this year, Vienna was affected by serious ethnic conflicts, which broke out, especially between young people from Syria and Chechnya. The police reacted with a large -scale application campaign that now caused costs of 336,723 euros. The amount was recently announced by Interior Minister Gerhard Karner (ÖVP) as part of a parliamentary request by the FPÖ MP Hannes Amesbauer.

The measure took place in the period from July 9th to 25th, 2024 and included the use of police forces from six federal states, while Tyrol and Vorarlberg were not involved. During this time, a total of 196 advertisements were filed and 23 people were arrested. It is particularly striking that 41 of the ads of criminal nature, with 12 out of a total of 23 arrests also related to criminal law. The rest concerned administrative matters.

Details on the conflicts

The trigger for these violent clashes seem to be in the Arthur Park in Vienna favorites, especially in the incident of June 3, in which a Chechen was seriously injured by Syrian young people. This led to an escalation of violence, which reached its peak between July 5 and 7. On these days there were several massive confrontations, including in the Anton-Kummerer Park in Brigittenau and at the Meidling train station.

Overall, at least seven people were injured in these violent clashes, four of whom suffered serious injuries. The last known incident occurred on July 10 at Floridsdorf station, which further concerned about the continuing violence in the city.

During the entire operating campaign of two weeks, a Viennese police officer violated who injured himself in the event of a fall. It is noteworthy that the officials did not have to use firearms, which indicates the preventive and de -escalating strategy of the police.

The financial aspects of this strategy and the large number of ads should initiate both political and social discussions in the coming weeks and months. The background and their development are described in further reports of Volksblatt.at in detail.