Police have arrested one man and are looking for more suspects after a disabled man was knocked down, beaten with one of his crutches and then robbed in what may have been a racially motivated attack.

"They said, 'You black people, Negroes, Negroes,' and they come all to me. And then they just try to beat me, beat me," said Francis Pitia, a Sudanese man who has lived in Canada for the past three years.

Pitia said he and two Sudanese friends were standing in front of his downtown Kitchener, Ont., apartment building around 10:30 p.m. Saturday, when a group of white men came running at them.

"There was a lot of yelling," he said. "We didn't talk to them.  We were just quiet."

First, they attacked his able-bodied friends, then they turned to Pitia, knocking him to the ground and beating him with his crutch.

One friend got away and ran to the nearby bus station, where he called police.

Pitia was knocked unconscious and awoke later in hospital. He was released several hours later, visibly battered and bruised. His eyes are bloodshot, stitches mark his lower lip and his temples are swollen.

When asked to speculate on the motive for the attack, he replied: " I don't know. I don't have any idea."

Waterloo Regional Police said they are investigating the possibility that the attack may have been racially motivated.

A 20-year-old man has been charged with assault with a weapon and theft.

As for Pitia, he said he's not scared of going out of his home again because he survived years in Sudan.