Pamplona bull-runners are tossed around and trampled with yet more thrill seekers injured under the hooves of rampaging animals in Spanish town

According to local government sources in the Spanish city, more daredevils from Pamplona were injured under the hooves of bulls on the third day of the festivities. Two men were taken to hospital with minor injuries.

According to the University Hospital of Navarra, two men, aged 24 and 29, suffered facial injuries. None of them were injured by direct contact with the bulls’ horns and their lives are not in danger.

Dramatic footage shows revellers stumbling and covering their heads as they try to outrun ferocious fighting bulls during the dangerous 850-metre race through the city’s narrow streets on Tuesday morning.

This comes after one participant was gored and five others suffered bruises last weekend.

A 37-year-old man from Beriain, near Pamplona, ​​where the festival takes place every July, has suffered the only injury resulting in serious blood loss so far this year.

The other five victims were a 54-year-old man from New York. All six runners who went to the hospital were men.

Since records began in 1910, sixteen people have died at the annual festival, most recently in 2009. Many more have been injured while trying to avoid the wild animals.

The festivities, which include bull runs, concerts, religious processions and copious amounts of wine, were made famous by Ernest Hemingway’s 1926 novel The Sun Also Rises.

The curtain rose on Saturday on nine days of festivities as thousands of people filled the city’s central square for the ‘chupinazo’ – the fireworks display that kicks off an event with origins in the Middle Ages.

Partygoers dressed in the essential white outfits with a red bandana around their neck and celebrated by showering each other with wine and sangria.

The bull running on Tuesday morning at 8am was the third of eight so-called ‘encierros’ and is the highlight of the festival.

Led by six oxen, the bulls began their half-mile race through the streets of Pamplona’s old town.

According to commentators, the morning run was ‘fast and clean’ and lasted just 2 minutes and 26 seconds.

However, bulls were also seen colliding with runners as they headed into an alley.

The bulls that run every morning are killed in the afternoon by professional bullfighters.

Every year, between 200 and 300 people are injured during the festival, often foreigners from Britain, the US and Australia.

The most recent death occurred in 2009, when 27-year-old Daniel Jimeno from Madrid was gored in the neck by a bull named Capuchino.

Animal rights activists campaign against the festival every year, saying it is cruel to animals who are goaded into killing them in front of a roaring crowd.

This annual festival commemorates the city’s first bishop and patron saint, San Fermin.

The origins of the bull runs lie in the ancient custom of transporting bulls from the fields outside the city, where they were bred, to the arena, where they were slaughtered.

During this ‘run’, local youth jumped between the participants in an attempt to show their courage.

Bull runs are practiced in several cities and towns in Spain and in some cities in Mexico. The Pamplona run is considered the most famous.