By Joanne Hughes

The violent outbreak followed friction between a number of Iraqis and longer-term residents of Caia Park in Wrexham.

But police blamed a criminal element for taking advantage of the situation.

Caia Park is home to thousands

Some believe the fighting resulted from a lack of understanding and misinformation about the refugees living on the estate.

Ugandan refugee Davidii Kakande, who still lives in Caia Park, believes local residents are jealous.

"The people from Iraq had cars and I read in the newspaper that some of the refugees come here in their underwear and now they're driving Mercedes Benz," he said.

There's a lot of misinformation and myths and fears of the unknown Catherine Green, Wrexham Council

"This situation in Caia Park of rioting happened because people here, they do not listen to refugees, they don't care about them so much.

"The estate is not a nice estate. When I was still an asylum seeker I used to live near Bellevue Park and people there are lovely and so civil.

"People in Caia Park look at you as an enemy."

Despite numerous attempts to talk to the Iraqi Kurd refugees they have refused to come forward, choosing to put the disturbances behind them instead.

Zahid Noor from the Welsh Refugee Council said they are no nearer to discovering why the disturbances occurred.

He added that the majority of refugees, moved from the estate to a safe house, have now left Wrexham.

A total of 73 people were arrested following the two nights of violence which began on 22 June.

Forty-eight people have been charged with violent disorder and, within that figure, four have been charged in addition with throwing petrol bombs.

Police say they expect further large-scale arrests in the future once further evidence has been gathered.

Caia Park resident Chris Thomas said lessons had been learnt

Residents' association member Chris Thomas said people needed to be educated about legal entitlements.

"There's all this confusion. You see programmes on television, there's the asylum issue and the refugee issue and people are confused about the differences between the two," she said.

"There is a long history of people from different ethnic backgrounds living on the estate and there's never been a problem with that.

"The problem was that there was a large number of young, single males in a small area.

"Had there been the same number of young males from any background there may have been problems because they have different lifestyles."

Catherine Green, of Wrexham Council, said many people did not understand why people flee to the UK.

Ugandan refugee Davidii Kakande said people look at you as an enemy

"There's a lot of misinformation and myths and fears of the unknown. People don't understand that the people who are granted refugee status have fled terrible happenings in their own countries," she said.

Rumours flying around the estate included claims that refugees had been given free mobile telephones and cars by the council.

"All of these refugees have jobs - like anyone who has a job they can spend their money anyway they want to," said Wrexham Council's deputy leader Alun Jenkins.

"They can buy mobile phones but there's this feeling that they're here scrounging, that they're being given money and mobile phones - that's quite untrue," he added.

The estate and its residents are now looking to the future.

Tenants, the council, community groups and support networks for asylum seekers and refugees have set up two groups to look at the problems on the estate.

They are looking at housing and policy, education and community information.

"There are certain things you can do - understanding people's cultures more," said Mrs Thomas.

"In the local schools here they do talk about different cultures.

"Maybe as a community we could celebrate different cultures."

She added: "During the initial disturbances people were immediately saying it was race but now they say it wasn't, but it's too late.

"It's really getting to me that because my address is Caia Park people are assuming I'm a racist," she said.

Mrs Thomas said the community should not offer shelter to asylum seekers or refugees until the problem was addressed.

"We need to get these groups set up and we need some strategies in place," she said.

"Everybody has a lesson to be learnt from what's happened."