Riot police in Spain have again clashed with hundreds of protesters on the third consecutive day of violence directed against immigrants from North Africa.

The local immigrant community has asked the authorities for protection after rioting left their property ransacked and their cars overturned.

Clouds of smoke wafted over the south-eastern Spanish region of Almeria as a plastic recycling factory, set alight by anti-immigrant protestors, burnt to the ground.

There were clashes in and around the Moroccan quarter of El Ejido as riot police tried to clear roads blocked by the demonstrators.

Spanish state radio reported that more than 30 people were injured and seven others arrested as police prevented protesters marching on El Ejido.

Stabbings

The violence erupted on Saturday when a Moroccan man was arrested on suspicion of stabbing to death a Spanish woman in a local market.

The death came two weeks after another Moroccan man was arrested in connection with the stabbing to death of two people.

In response, hundreds of Spaniards marched through the town shouting racist slogans. Police reinforcements were called in after protesters went on the rampage, burning cars and shops belonging to Moroccans.

The Spanish Foreign Minister, Abel Matutes, appealed for calm, saying that Spaniards must get used to the influx of North African immigrants attracted by the fast-growing economy.

He told state radio: "We need to reflect on how we need to change our behaviour in a pluralist society that with each day will ... have more immigrants, that each day will need more immigrants to take our country forward."

The Moroccan ambassador to Madrid, Yamal Eddin Mechbal, called on his countrymen "to behave like civilised people, containing your rage and ire" in response to the attacks, the Spanish news agency Europa Press reported.

El Ejido is the centre for fruit and vegetable production on Spain's southern coast - an industry that relies heavily on cheap immigrant labour.