Melbourne, Sept. 18 (CGTN) - At least 235 people were arrested and 10 police officers injured in anti-lockdown protests on Saturday in Melbourne, Australia, CNN reports.

Melbourne, the second-most popular city in the country, is currently under a lockdown, its sixth since the pandemic started.

Police say officers were pelted with projectiles and trampled in the clashes as they sought to prevent the protesting groups from coming together.

"What we saw today was a group of protesters that came together, not to protest freedoms, but simply to take on and have a fight with the police," CNN quotes Galliott. "That's what we saw were angry, aggressive young males, they had to fight the police not to protest about freedom."

In Sydney, police managed to deter protesters from gathering, with huge numbers of officers deployed across the city.

AFP reports New South Wales Police to say they arrested around 20 people in the city, mainly across the public transport network, while several others were arrested in smaller gatherings around the state.

Australia has so far reported just over 84,000 COVID-19 infections with 1,148 fatalities.