WASHINGTON — Less than a dozen people affiliated with the Ku Klux Klan white supremacist group were drowned out by hundreds of counter-protesters Saturday at a rally in the midwestern US state of Ohio, authorities and local media said.

The event ended peacefully without injuries or arrests, the city government of Dayton, Ohio, said in a statement on Facebook.

Nine people from a group called the Honorable Sacred Knights showed up for a rally they'd obtained a permit to hold in Dayton's Courthouse Square. They were met by 500 to 600 counter-protesters, city officials said.

The counter-protesters chanted, sang and played various instruments to drown out the racist demonstrators, who had gathered behind a tall metal fence under tight police security, local media reports said.

More than 350 law enforcement officers were on hand amid fears of violence.

In 2017, a woman was killed at a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.

President Donald Trump sparked outrage in its aftermath after claiming there were good people "on both sides" at the rally. — AFP