Hundreds of people descended on an area of the Turkish capital on Wednesday where a community of Syrian refugees and migrants live and videos showed groups of men overturning cars and vandalising shops, said a BBC report.

Anti-migrant sentiment in Turkey has flared up in recent years with several politicians demanding harsher restrictions.

Tension between the locals and the immigrants has escalated after more refugees arrived from Afghanistan fleeing the rapidly advancing Taliban fighters in their country, the report stated.

The United Nations estimates that Turkey currently hosts the largest number of refugees worldwide, including more than three million Syrians.

The BBC report said that the incident in the Altindag neighbourhood came after 18-year-old Emirhan Yalcin was killed in an altercation with Syrians.

As the situation went out of control, the authorities deployed riot police to tackle hundreds of protesters who flooded the streets of Altindag and chanted anti-Syrian slogans.

 The Ankara Governor's Office said the violence had been brought under control with the "intense efforts of the police force".