Anti-Trump protesters torch Albanian government buildings over luxury marina plans

Tens of thousands of students have swelled the ranks of protesters this week, transforming months of largely peaceful demonstrations into fierce street confrontations.

Officers clad in riot gear faced off against youths who erected barricades from blazing rubbish bins across the city's streets.

Demonstrators hurled stones at police lines, smashed traffic signals and lobbed petrol bombs whilst demanding Mr Rama's resignation.

The turmoil has now spread beyond Tirana, with university students nationwide boycotting lectures in solidarity.

The crisis has its roots in a proposed multi-billion-dollar luxury marina and tourism scheme linked to the US President's daughter and her husband Jared Kushner.

The development would transform an uninhabited island and a pristine stretch of southern Albanian coastline — an area of lagoons, beaches, bays and headlands that serves as a haven for wildlife, including thousands of flamingos.

Opposition to the project sparked demonstrations that began in May, with the movement adopting the name "Flamingo Revolution" in tribute to the threatened birdlife.

Protesters have accused Mr Rama's administration of a lack of transparency surrounding the deal, holding it up as emblematic of wider governmental corruption.

What started as an environmentally focused campaign steadily gathered momentum over the summer months, laying the groundwork for this week's dramatic escalation into nationwide disorder.

On Wednesday evening, the unrest took a destructive turn when demonstrators set the education ministry ablaze and launched assaults on several other state buildings, among them the prime minister's office and the interior ministry.

Youths constructed makeshift barricades from burning waste bins across Tirana's streets, clashing with officers in full riot gear.

Bus stops were wrecked and petrol bombs were flung at government premises as the protests escalated well beyond anything witnessed during the preceding months of peaceful campaigning.

Economy minister Delina Ibrahimaj hit back at the destruction, declaring: "Setting fire to an institution is not a peaceful protest. It is an act that endangers people's lives."

The disorder has rippled outward from the capital to towns and cities across Albania. In Korçë, a southern town, teenagers reportedly shattered the windows of a secondary school, whilst university students elsewhere refused to attend classes in a coordinated boycott.

Mr Rama toured the wreckage on Thursday, posting footage to Facebook showing him picking his way through shattered glass and charred furniture at a college campus in Tirana.

"Until yesterday, this was the office of the College of Europe, the school of a united Europe," he said.

The prime minister laid blame for the violence at the feet of opposition figures, describing the perpetrators as "the hands that seek to pull Albania down whenever it tries to rise".

He flatly rejected demands that he step down, having secured a fourth term in office last year.

"We had elections last year, not a revolution," he told Reuters, adding that his duty was to "listen, address legitimate concerns and keep Albania moving forward".