Students throw stones, petrol bombs at police as Athens protests continue

Athens: Violent protests continued in Athens late on Saturday, with hundreds of Greek youths fighting running battles with police, two weeks after police shot dead a 15-year-old boy.

Armed with stones and petrol bombs, students targeted riot police outside university buildings after a vigil marking the December 6 killing of Alexandros Grigoropoulos turned violent.

Police blocked surrounding roads and fired teargas at the youths, who sheltered in the university campus which police are banned from entering.

"There are more than 600 students and they're running in and out of the university, throwing rocks and Molotov cocktails," said a police official, who asked not to be named. No injuries were reported.

Students have stormed hundreds of schools and several university campuses across the nation. In the northern city of Thessaloniki, demonstrators briefly occupied a radio station and a cinema.

The protests, the worst Greece has known in decades, have fed on anger at youth unemployment, government reforms and the global economic crisis.