The city centers of Melbourne and Sydney, Australia, were last night turned into battlefields as gangs of nonwhites—Africans and Pacific Islanders—fought running battles with each other and the police in what one news outlet described as “mayhem on the streets.”

The violence in Melbourne took place during the city’s famous Moomba Festival, which is normally a family-oriented affair, consisting of fun fairs, live music, eating, and merriment.

The city has of late seen a huge influx of African invaders, particularly from the Sudan, and they have organized themselves into several street gangs, bringing drugs, violence, and crime onto the formerly safe streets.

The Sudanese gang involved in last night’s mayhem was named by police as the “Apex.” This gang had sought out battle with a Pacific Islander gang named “Islanders 23” during the festival—and online before the event started.

Armed with knives and guns, about two hundred members of the Apex and Islander 23 gangs were heard chanting “f**k the police” before launching an all-out brawl that turned Federation Square and Swanston Street into a riot zone.

According to reports, police used batons and pepper spray to break up the nonwhite gangs as they punched and beat each other with the weapons they had brought along specifically for the clash. Their violent feud broke out at around 8 p.m. and shut down parts of the central business district and the tramline for up to two hours.

Terrified Moomba Festival-goers were forced to take cover as the nonwhites assaulted police and bystanders on the corner of Swanston and Flinders streets.

“Chairs were picked up and chairs were thrown from these gangs of people—there was glass being thrown; it was scary,” one witness told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC).

A number of people were treated for injuries in the city and taken to the hospital after the clash, Ambulance Victoria confirmed.

Police said they were investigating “a series of affrays” in Federation Square and surrounding areas, along with reports of four robberies and an assault which resulted in a man being rushed to the hospital.

In Sydney, another group of Africans—unconnected to the ones rioting in Melbourne—started a mass brawl outside the Metro Theatre well past midnight. The fighting spread into the surrounding streets and took police from three different stations an hour to disperse.

Sydney police inspector Stuart Leggat was quoted by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation as saying that the violence had stemmed from “a group of people from a particular ethnic background and they were arguing with one another and jostling one another….”

Two nonwhites, aged 24 and 18, were arrested and taken to Kings Cross Police Station where they were expected to be charged with assaulting police and resisting arrest.

The Apex gang has been getting increasingly violent as African numbers in Melbourne have grown, and in November last year, police in the city set up a special unit known as “Taskforce Tense” to monitor the nonwhites.

The Chief Commissioner of Victoria Police, Graham Ashton, told ABC that in light of the night’s violence, the task force “would now be given extra resources” because the “levels of violence exhibited by this group was an increase and escalation of violence that concerns us greatly.”

The Apex gang of nonwhites is best known for violent car thefts across Melbourne’s southeast suburbs. Earlier this year, one of its young members threatened to walk into a Melbourne police station and shoot an officer.