Youth gang on the prowl in Gżira

The police have been alerted to a large gang of youths who are regularly attacking other young people without provocation and breaking the peace in the area between Gżira and Sliema.

Two young people from Gżira are expected to be arraigned over one particular incident after they were apprehended following a police investigation.

According to the accounts of people who spoke to The Times, the gang consists of more than 20 people, ranging in age from about 14 to 25.

"I was walking my girlfriend home at night and one of them tripped me. When I got up I tried to walk off but they got even more aggressive and pushed me to the ground and started to kick me," a 21-year-old Maltese victim, who preferred to remain anonymous, said.

His girlfriend was hit with a plastic bottle but escaped unharmed. The two scurried off to the police station to get help. The young man asked to be escorted back to his car by a policeman for fear of being attacked again.

He said the group that attacked him consisted of around seven teenagers. But while running to the police station he noticed an almost organised back-up response, with other aggressive youths coming out of various streets, some in their cars.

"I was afraid to walk to my car without a police escort. The problem is I have to pass through the area quite often since that's where my girlfriend lives," he said.

In recent weeks, two similar police reports were filed, the first involving a group of four foreign youngsters who were attacked without provocation. They all suffered slight injuries and filed a report at the Sliema police station.

A separate group of four foreign students filed another report claiming to have been harassed and insulted by three teens, but investigations to trace the aggressors are still ongoing.

The three incidents were likely to be related, police sources said, since the description of the aggressors tallied with each other.

In all cases it seems the perpetrators attacked the victims for the fun of it, with apparently no other motive. They did not know their victims.

The police told The Times they were carrying out frequent patrols to prevent such incidents.

Similar reports have reached this newspaper about a gang of aggressive teenagers and youths from Valletta.