Masked Rioters Turn Bilbao Streets Into Inferno After Far-Right Agitator Scraps Rally

Fires burned along a main avenue in Bilbao’s Deusto district on Monday evening, October 26, as hooded rioters torched cars and bins after protests against a planned visit by far-right agitator Vito Quiles.

X user Alchemist filmed the aftermath, as flames rose from burning debris in the middle of the road and fire engines with flashing lights pulled up, before firefighters hosed down the street through clouds of smoke. “Deusto right now, burning,” the filmer wrote.

Thousands had joined peaceful marches against Quiles, who had called a rally outside the University of Deusto campus for 7 p.m. but called it off that afternoon, citing security concerns. As the crowds broke up, groups of masked youths set fire to bins, at least half a dozen cars and a local police motorcycle on Lehendakari Agirre Avenue and threw stones at police, before the unrest spread to the city centre.

The Basque Security Department said 17 people were arrested on suspicion of public disorder, 10 of them minors.