First runners gored at this year’s Pamplona bull running festival

Three runners were struck by bulls

People try to avoid a bull during the fifth ‘encierro’ or running of the bulls during the San Fermin Festival (EPA)

Three people were gored at Monday’s run of Pamplona’s San Fermin Festival, the first runners to suffer such injuries at this year’s event.

Television images showed one bull repeatedly tossing and butting one of the runners against the wooden barriers on the edge of the ring and then goring another in the back of the leg.

Red Cross worker Jose Aldaba told Spanish National Television that one man was gored on the street while two others were stabbed by a bull’s horn inside the bullring at the end of the run.

Three other people were injured. There are three more daily runs before it finishes on Thursday.

The spectacle lasted just over three minutes as hundreds of runners, mostly men, ran frantically ahead and alongside six fighting bulls as they charged through the cobblestone streets of the northern city.

The run finishes at Pamplona’s bullring, where later in the day the bulls are killed by professional bullfighters.

Animal rights’ activists claim that the event is cruel.

The adrenaline rush of the morning bull run is followed by partying throughout the day and night.

(With agencies)