Protesters and riot police have clashed in the Albanian capital, Tirana, for a seventh consecutive day as a student-led movement demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Edi Rama shows no sign of easing.

Official figures released before Monday’s violence said 295 people had been injured since the demonstrations began, 186 of them police officers. A police station and government buildings in Tirana have been attacked during the unrest.

The protests began over demands for better conditions in universities but have broadened into anger over corruption and calls for Rama to step down. Many of those taking part are high school and university students.

Water cannon in Youth Park

On Monday, in Rinia Park, also known as Youth Park, protesters were seen prising cobblestones from the ground to use against police. A convoy of police vehicles later advanced along a boulevard, led by an armoured truck firing water cannon and tear gas among those fleeing.

Riot police chased the largely student crowd through the park. Some took refuge in a cafe, where even staff were affected by the gas. Volunteers in reflective jackets treated people overcome by fumes, and one young man arguing with an officer was sprayed in the face with pepper spray at close range, according to a BBC correspondent at the scene.

Rama: ‘the state has fallen’ if it negotiates

Rama has taken a hard line. Meeting police chiefs, he held up a rock thrown at officers on Sunday and said: “The moment the state negotiates with this, the state has fallen.”

He has also suggested that outside forces are behind the unrest, saying the protesters included “young men and women who have been radicalised by dark forces in Europe and the US”. “Albania has become one of the targets of a well co-ordinated attack,” he said. He has not set out evidence publicly for that claim.

Rama has been prime minister for 13 years and a dominant figure in Albanian politics since the turn of the century. He has promised that Albania will join the European Union by 2030 and argues that he is the only leader who can deliver membership.

Lawyers question arrests

Human rights lawyer Gentian Sejrani, who is providing legal support to more than 100 people arrested during the protests, criticised the police response. “The police actions are often chaotic and stupid,” he said, adding that officers rarely presented evidence in court. One of his clients, he said, was arrested on his way to a bus stop and had nothing to do with the demonstrations.

“Those who are actually throwing stuff at the police rarely get caught, because they run the fastest,” he said. Police, for their part, appear angered by the violence directed at colleagues, and each side blames the other for escalating the confrontations.

‘They have no other way to be listened to’

Sidorela Vatnikaj, a 27-year-old master’s student with eight years of experience in anti-government protests, described a movement without formal leaders. Her days, she said, begin by co-ordinating groups, arranging lawyers and first-aid equipment and checking that friends and relatives are safe, before moving from one protest to the next.

She said she was uncomfortable with violence against the authorities but blamed police for starting and fuelling it. “When I see people throwing stones at the police, I understand their anger. I don’t judge them. I’m not happy, but they have no other way to be listened to,” she said.

Vatnikaj said many protesters came from families whose members had felt forced to emigrate, estimating that a million people had left in the past decade. She called for a technocratic government for one year to prepare what she described as genuinely democratic elections, and accused Rama of rigging past votes and being too close to wealthy foreign investors and organised crime. Rama’s government has consistently rejected such accusations.

She said young Albanians had been encouraged by Generation Z protest movements elsewhere in the world. “I have seen my mother and father’s generation, working all their lives and dreaming of having a democratic society where they could live with dignity. That never happened,” she said.

With the government refusing to negotiate under pressure and protesters vowing to return to the streets, there is little sign of a quick end to the most sustained unrest Tirana has seen in years.