Anger soars over HK mob attack

Anger soared in Hong Kong yesterday over a vicious assault on pro-democracy protesters by suspected triad gangsters that left dozens wounded, a dramatic escalation of the political turmoil plaguing the Chinese city.

The financial hub’s roiling unrest took a dark turn late Sunday when gangs of men -- most wearing white T-shirts and carrying bats, sticks and metal poles -- set upon anti-government demonstrators as they returned from another huge march earlier that day.

Footage broadcast live on Facebook showed people screaming as the men beat multiple protesters and journalists in Yuen Long station and inside subway trains, leaving pools of blood on the floor.

Hospital authorities said 45 people were wounded in the attack, with one man in critical condition and five others with serious injuries.

Critics rounded on the city’s embattled police force, accusing officers of taking more than an hour to reach the site and failing to arrest the armed assailants who stayed in the streets around the station into yesterday morning.

Some men in white shirts were later filmed leaving the scene in cars with Chinese mainland number plates.

China yesterday reacted furiously to anti-government protesters vandalising the walls of its representative’s office in Hong Kong and defacing the national emblem, branding their actions “absolutely intolerable”.

Taiwan’s foreign minister yesterday called for “genuine” democratic elections to be held in Hong Kong after the city was rocked by violence, comments that infuriated Beijing.