Columbus statue toppled

Baltimore: Protesters in the US city of Baltimore pulled down a statue of Christopher Columbus on Saturday, local media reported, the latest monument to be toppled in anti-racism demonstrations.

Statues of figures connected to colonialism and slavery have been ripped from their plinths in the United States and around the world since Black Lives Matter protests were sparked by the killing of George Floyd by a white police officer in Minneapolis in May.

Footage published by the Baltimore Sun showed protesters using ropes to pull down the statue of Columbus -- the Italian navigator who reached the Americas in 1492 -- near the city’s Little Italy district and rolling it into the Inner Harbor on the night of July 4.

Long hailed as the so-called discoverer of "The New World", Columbus is considered by many to have spurred years of genocide against indigenous groups in the Americas. He is regularly denounced in a similar way to Civil War generals of the pro-slavery South.