Photos: Pamplona’s annual bull runs return, protests in tow

Thousands of cheering revellers filled Pamplona's main square beginning on Friday to watch the traditional chupinazo firecracker being set off, marking the start of the northern Spanish city's annual San Fermin festival more popularly known around the world by its bull runs. Also present were demonstrators who held up Stop bullfights signs and shouted slogans such as Fiestas without blood.Immortalised by Ernest Hemingway in The Sun Also Rises, the nine-day festival sees thousands descend on northern Spain to watch participants run from bulls along an 850-meter course through narrow streets.

Updated on: Oct 30, 2019 2:16 PM IST

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A reveller is tossed by a heifer bull during festivities in the bullring on the first day of Pamplona’s famed San Fermin running of the bulls festival with a traditional firework known as the” Chupinazo”. (Jose Jordan / AFP)

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Thousands of cheering revellers gathered at Pamplona’s Town Hall on Friday to watch the start of the northern Spanish city’s annual San Fermin festival. Amid shouts in Basque and Spanish of “Long live San Fermin,” the saint honoured by the festival, people in the crowd wore the festival’s typical red scarf and sprayed each other with wine, staining the traditional white attire. (Jose Jordan / AFP)

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Participants touch a San Fermin effigy before running next to Jose Escolar fighting bulls on the second day of the festival. (Ander Gillenea / AFP)

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Revellers run next to the Fire Bull, a man carrying a bull figure packed with fireworks. This festival was immortalized by American Nobel Literature Prize winner Ernest Hemingway in his 1926 novel “The Sun Also Rises.” (Susana Vera / REUTERS)

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The bull runs are the highlight of the world-famous fiesta, and its seamless nine days and eight nights of traditional events, music and alcohol-soaked parties attract around one million visitors every year to the city of nearly 200,000. (Susana Vera / REUTERS)

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Spanish rejoneador --mounted bullfighter Pablo Hermoso de Mendoza performs a pass during a bullfight. For eight consecutive mornings, daredevils race with bulls along an 850 meter street course to the city’s bullring, where the animals are killed during the traditional corridas. (Joseba Etxaburu / REUTERS)

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Five people have been injured at the festival, with at least one gored by a bull’s horns. Falls or trampling by the bulls cause most injuries. (Ander Gillenea / AFP)

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The annual pro-animal rights protest on the eve of the festival used to go largely snubbed in Pamplona, but activists said more locals have joined their campaigns in recent years as partial bans on bullfighting spread over dozens of Spanish towns. (Susana Vera / REUTERS)

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The festival also takes a strong position against sexual abuse. Sexual assaults reported during the festival went from two in 2008 to 20 in 2016. The figures, from a study by the Public University of Navarra, rose to 22 last year amid growing public outrage. (Ander Gillenea / AFP)