18-year-old run over and killed in Dubai as rival gangs clash

young man was killed and two others injured in a fight between two rival gangs armed with swords and knives.   18, who holds a passport from the Comoros Islands, died after a car ran over him during the clash in Oud Al Muteena in the early hours of Friday morning. The fight involved four young men from Oud Al Muteena aged from 18 to their twenties, two of them brothers, and three brothers from Al Warqa of about the same age. “The Al Warqa group had come to Oud Al Muteena in a retaliation attack after an earlier fight,” said Brig Khalil Al Mansouri, head of criminal investigations at Dubai Police. Gang violence is becoming more common and more vicious in the city’s low-income areas. In response to Friday’s fight, police have intensified their campaign against carrying knives and swords, and have increased patrols to catch young men with weapons. Police say they do not believe the driver of the car intended to kill the victim of Friday’s fight, but investigations continue. “During interrogation, the driver said he did not intend to kill him but wanted to get him out of his way,” Brig Al Mansouri said. They say that after the Al Warqa group had been beaten severely, they began to withdraw from the area. The victim tried to stop them by standing in front of their car. The car continued moving and hit him, dragging him for several metres. He was rushed to Rashid Hospital but died on the way. The driver escaped with the car, and his brothers also fled. Police later tracked down the car and arrested the driver. The five other people involved in the fight were also arrested in different areas of the city. The case has been referred to the Dubai Public Prosecution. Police say they do not know what caused the initial fight. Residents of Dubai’s low-income areas say gangs of unemployed young men use swords, axes and knives in their fights. The weapons are of particular concern in Satwa and Al Quoz. The gangs consist of young men from low-income and troubled families, and are divided along neighbourhood lines. Police say the problem is not widespread, but two other cases in recent months have heightened residents’ fears. In one incident, an Emirati man was attacked in Al Warqa by two masked men. In the other, Mohammed Ebrahim, a 21-year-old Emirati bank employee, was attacked by six people armed with axes and butcher’s knives as he met a friend outside his home in Al Quoz. Mr Ebrahim was treated in hospital for a head injury, a dislocated knee and several deep cuts.