Hundreds of asylum-seekers clashed with riot police near an immigrant centre in the southern Italian city of Bari yesterday in a protest to demand refugee status that left dozens injured.

Protesters hurled rocks and metal bars at police lines, set off fires and trashed the facility on the outskirts of Bari. Police responded with tear gas and live rounds fired into the air and 30 protesters were arrested.

The rioters blocked a main road and railway for several hours, disrupting regional train services and car traffic. A passing bus was also wrecked.

Local officials later intervened and persuaded the protesters to stand down after the authorities undertook to respond to their requests by tomorrow.

The asylum-seekers returned to the facility, Italian news media reported.

“Those found to be responsible for these actions should be punished,” junior interior minister Alfredo Mantovano told reporters.

Fabio Rizzi, a senator for the anti-immigration Northern League party, a member of the ruling coalition, said: “The attack on law enforcement by North African immigrants in Bari cannot be written off simply as a protest. We ask prosecutors to investigate fully and begin deportations”.

Yesterday’s protest was the latest in a series of riots at refugee centres in Italy filled with African migrant workers fleeing Libya in recent weeks.

Eight police officers were injured overnight on Saturday in a riot by detainees at a centre outside Rome, who burned mattresses and threw bottles.

There were similar scenes last week at a refugee centre in Sicily in which 300 asylum-seekers blocked a road and set off fires in the facility.