San Francisco Frontiers - Crowds build as Albanian PM tours protest aftermath

Police used tear gas and water cannons to disperse demonstrators who were marching along several main roads around Tirana on Thursday morning, while protests spread to other cities.

Demonstrators are demanding Rama's resignation and more support for students in the country, citing poor university conditions and high tuition fees.

There were hours of violent clashes between police and demonstrators in Tirana on Tuesday and Wednesday, when protesters smashed their way into several government buildings and set at least one ablaze.

When protests again began on Thursday morning, police pushed back crowds trying to approach the education ministry, while demonstrators hurled stones at officers, an AFP reporter saw.

Police said 51 officers were injured during Wednesday's protests and 65 people were arrested, suspected of "attacking police officers, institutions, public and private property".

They did not give figures for protesters hurt but Tirana public hospital reported that "seven protesters injured in the violence sought medical treatment".

The prime minister was due to meet his party's parliamentary group on Thursday morning, when protest groups circulated an "ultimatum" demanding his resignation by 1:00 pm (1100 GMT).

Rama posted a video on his Facebook page showing him touring the burnt-out remains of an office at a college campus in Tirana.

- Months of protests -

"Until yesterday, this was the office of the College of Europe, the school of a united Europe," he said in the video -- his first public comments since the protests began.

"Today this is the ruin left by hands that are not, and can never be, the hands of students," Rama alleged, blaming opposition figures for the violence at the demonstrations.

Meanwhile, university students in several other Albanian towns were boycotting classes.

In Shkodra, students at the foreign languages faculty gathered in front of the rectorate.

Local media in the southern city of Korce accused students of smashing windows at a high school.

The European Union's delegation in Tirana repeated its early calls for de-escalation, strongly condemning the "violent escalation at the protest and the destruction of public and private property".

"We call on protesters to exercise restraint and to refrain from any acts of violence. Violence has no place in democracies," it said in a statement.

On Wednesday, the EU also called for a prompt investigation of allegations of excessive force by police.

For more than four months, anti-government protests in Albanian have routinely drawn crowds in their thousands.

They were originally sparked by a luxury hotel project linked to US President Donald Trump's family, which scientists said in July had already caused irreparable damage to a once pristine stretch of Albania's coast.

I.Rodriguez--SFF