Five injured during controversial bull run in Spain's Pamplona

At least five people were injured during the first running of the bulls at this year's San Fermín festival in Pamplona in northern Spain.
The organizers of the famous and controversial event announced on Thursday that there had been no injuries caused by the horns of the bulls.
The five injured young men were taken to hospital with bruises and contusions, they said. One 25-year-old, for example, suffered a bruised skull in a fall.
The festival in honour of the city's patron saint, Saint Fermin, is being held for the first time since 2019. In 2020 and 2021, it was cancelled because of the coronavirus pandemic.
There will be a total of eight bull races held up to next Thursday. Every day in the early morning, six fighting bulls, some weighing over 600 kilograms, and also several tame leading oxen are chased through the narrow streets of the old town to the arena for the bullfights in the evening.
Dozens of runners are injured every year during the tests of courage by the predominantly young men over the 825-metre course. Since 1924, there have been 16 fatalities, the last in 2009.
This year as in previous years, animal protection groups protested the event, which is steeped in tradition and which has taken place since 1591 but has since become controversial even in Spain.
Despite all the criticism, the festival attracts countless tourists from all over the world, especially from Europe, the US and Australia.
Among others, US writer Ernest Hemingway wrote about Pamplona in his 1926 novel "The Sun Also Rises."