A statement by parish priest Sebastian Caruana said yesterday that “the parish priest and clergy of the parish of Our Lady of Graces, Haz-Zabbar, following agreement reached with the musical societies Maria Mater Gratiae and Ghaqda Madonna tal-Grazzja – Banda San Mikiel, inform the parish community and the general public that the religious celebrations in connection with the titular feast of Our Lady of Graces will go ahead as originally planned.

“These include the pilgrimage for motor cyclists and cyclists and the procession with the statue of Our Lady of Graces in which the bands will participate as programmed. The procession will leave the church at around 7pm.”

Sources at Zabbar said the only change was that the tension-wracked eve of festa band march at yesterday noontime was cancelled.

Over the past years the Curia had threatened to ban any feast at which fighting takes place. Today’s festa at Zabbar is the last one in the festa season, a season which has not been marred so far by any brawl. One festa, that at Marsa, was banned at the beginning of the season when inter-parish tensions could not be defused in time for the festa.

The other tension-wracked festas were the two at Victoria. In the most recent case, on Santa Marija, the bells of the St George Basilica tolled for two and a half hours or the whole duration that the band from the other parish, the Leone Band, stayed in front of the church trying to play band marches.

Although the rivalry between the two main band clubs in Zabbar, Tal-Baqra (Blues) and Tal-Ajkla (Greens) goes back several decades, the events which culminated in Friday’s widely anticipated street brawl can be traced to an incident which took place three years ago.

On that occasion, the traditional kannizzata prepared by the Blues was vandalised and destroyed on the eve of the festa.

Damage was estimated at around Lm7,500.

This year, following negotiations involving the Curia, it was agreed that neither band should parade through Sanctuary Street in order to prevent similar incidents.

On Friday, however, as reported to this paper, this agreement was openly defied in Sanctuary Street, where, as was widely anticipated, the two sides soon came face to face with each other.

The fight itself broke out at around midnight at a point midway between the Social Club and the Tal-Baqra kazin.

One eyewitness described the scene in terms of a “stampede”.

“Suddenly the air was filled with bottles hurtling in all directions, and pandemonium broke out as people started running to get away from the melee.”

The same eyewitness also described how he attempted to administer first-aid to a man whose face had been lacerated.

Among those who sustained injuries was Assistant Commissioner Paul Sammut, who also was hit in the face with a broken bottle.

The police statement with regards to the brawl was rather bland and spoke of some people, including police officers, being “slightly injured.”

The efforts by the local district policemen brought the situation back to normal.

Police investigations are being conducted by the Zabbar district police.