Police have preliminarily determined that a mass brawl involving foreign nationals in a residential neighborhood of Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province, was a clash between rival groups of Central Asian nationals operating near Pyeongtaek Port.
The fight broke out in an area adjacent to a daycare center and an elementary school, and the situation was serious enough to trigger a Code 0 alert — the highest level of police mobilization — according to Yonhap.
According to the Pyeongtaek Police Station, officers are pursuing suspects linked to a late-night confrontation Saturday between groups of Kazakhstani and Kyrgyzstani nationals. Police believe the incident stemmed from a dispute between the two groups and are continuing to track those who fled the scene.
The first witness on the scene claimed about 40 people were involved in the fighting, but police said analysis of nearby CCTV footage suggests the actual number of participants was around 15.
The incident occurred in the Dogok-ri area of Poseung-eup, near Pyeongtaek Port, where a large community of foreign workers and ethnic Koreans from the former Soviet Union — known locally as a "Goryeo-in village" — has formed.
Police believe the brawl was most likely a clash between two Central Asian factions active in the area.
According to police dispatch records, the first call came in at around 11:10 p.m. Saturday, when a resident reported that several vehicles had gathered and a fight appeared imminent. A patrol car was dispatched, but by the time officers arrived, the group had already dispersed.
About 30 minutes later, at around 11:41 p.m., a second, more urgent call came in — "Foreign nationals are gathering. Come quickly" — before the line went dead. Police judged the situation to be an emergency, issued a Code 0 alert and mobilized a full response.
A patrol car from a police box roughly 2.5 kilometers away arrived at the scene within about a minute of the second call, followed by multiple patrol cars from nearby stations and a detective mobile unit from the Pyeongtaek Police Station's serious crimes division. Officers arrested two men in their 20s caught fleeing the scene.
The two men arrested were identified as nationals of Russia and Kyrgyzstan. Police said they had entered the country on student visas and were not undocumented immigrants.
The nationalities, visa status and exact identities of the remaining suspects who fled have not yet been determined.
Police said the blunt weapons found at the scene were ordinary wooden planks and a baseball bat picked up from the surrounding area. No bladed weapons were found.
Police do not believe those involved belong to an organized crime syndicate.
Investigators expect the process of identifying and tracking the suspects to take time. Many of those who fled are believed to have communicated through overseas messaging apps and Wi-Fi connections that are difficult to trace via cell tower records, and the vehicles used to escape may have been unregistered.
Rather than conducting a sweep arrest, police said they plan to identify suspects individually and apprehend them one by one. They also said they would step up special patrols in the area to address security gaps left in the wake of the incident.
mss@heraldcorp.com
