Thousands of Greek protesters clashed with riot police yet again in Athens today, as police started to run out of tear gas after battling rioters day and night for a whole week.

Police sources said their riot squads had fired 4,600 tear gas canisters this week as rioters torched hundreds of banks and shops and occupied their campuses, where police after forbidden by law from entering.

The police have asked Israel and Germany to send them emergency supplies, while protesters claimed that they had been using old stock from the 1980s in a desperate bid to contain the rioting. They claimed that corroded chemicals were causing some demonstrators to collapse and need medical attention.

“We found tear gas canister dated from 1981,” said one demonstrator, calling himself only GK. “The old chemicals make us sick, people have fainted and have trouble breathing,” he said.

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With the running street battles showing no sign of letting up, a march by students, anarchists and youths in masks ran into immediate trouble as rioters hurled rocks, fruit and chairs from street cafes at police trying to contain the latest rally.

Police responded by firing stun grenades and snatching rock-throwers who approached too close, at one point knocking down a Greek journalist with their plastic shields. As the masses approached parliament and challenged the police ranks, officers used remaining supplies of tear gas to drive them from the square before the assembly building.

The demonstrations started a week ago after a police officer shot dead a 15-year-old boy, claiming he had fired a warning shot in the air as youths threatened him and a fellow officer. The two policemen are in detention, with their defence lawyer claiming that an as yet unreleased ballistics report shows the boy was killed by a ricochet rather than by direct fire.

But the anger unleashed by the killing has acted as a lightning rod for smouldering discontent at a variety of social ills, from unemployment to police brutality and government corruption.

Left-wing demonstrators today chanted “Cops are murderers” and carried placards saying “Bullets in the kids, money in the bank” and “Down with the government of property and privatization”. One protester had even trained his pet dog to carry a poster in its mouth with the logo “Down with the state and all masters.”

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