The riots, triggered by a brawl and stampede at a match on Friday, spread to several towns in the area.

Kurds also staged a protest in Damascus on Saturday in which public property and cars were damaged and police arrested several people, witnesses said.

They also staged protests further afield, with some 50 demonstrators breaking into the grounds of the Syrian embassy in Brussels to protest at the deaths of Kurds in the Syrian riots.

Senior security officials in the region met local leaders as part of efforts to restore order. A Reuters correspondent touring the town saw a badly damaged railway station, and schools and public offices that had been wrecked or burnt.

The violence in Kameshli, near the Turkish-Iraqi border, ended after the interior minister, Ali Haj Hammoud, flew to the area to take control and the authorities threatened those responsible with the "severest punishments".

Police and residents armed with rifles patrolled the streets of al-Hassaka, the administrative centre of the region, where buildings had been attacked and damaged. Public offices were open for business, but parents kept children away from school.