Violence against migrants has erupted in Belfast after a Sudanese man was charged with attempted murder, with masked men setting houses and vehicles on fire, Reuters reports.
Hundreds of protesters, many with their faces covered, attacked police and set a number of vehicles on fire in several locations across Northern Ireland. The unrest began after a video of a knife attack that left one person seriously injured was posted online.
Video footage from the riots showed police helping a family escape a burning building, and local politicians and a pastor said many of the victims were black. Residents assessed the damage to their homes on the morning of the 10th of June. Many houses were charred to the ground, others were damaged by flames, windows were broken or cracked in the heat. Several cars were reduced to charred wreckage.
Northern Ireland First Minister Michelle O’Neill said there was no justification for the attacks. She added that the attacks on family homes by groups of masked men were nothing short of cowardice.
British Prime Minister Keir
Starmer described the knife attack north of Belfast on the morning of June 8 that started thee unrest as sickening.
The attack, which is not currently linked to terrorism, comes at a time of already high tensions in the country. A student recently died while being handcuffed by police as he bled to death from stab wounds. Meanwhile, the killer, a Sikh man, falsely accused the student of a racist attack. Britain has also been rocked by protests over immigration, with populist parties claiming that dangerous individuals have been allowed into the country.
Northern Ireland’s Justice Minister Naomi Long told Reuters that those with ill intentions, who previously couldn’t find Belfast on a map, were now seeking to exploit the understandable fear and anger sparked by the knife attack to target those with darker skin. She stressed that legitimate concerns should not be manipulated by malicious people: “We know in Northern Ireland the damage that can do when you demonise a whole group of people because of the behaviour of a few, and we do not want to go back there.”
Claire Hanna, the leader of the Northern Ireland Social Democrats and Labour Party, described the incident as racially motivated violence. She said the online environment that caused the unrest would now focus on something else, but Belfast residents would have to rebuild their lives.
The 30-year-old Sudanese man accused of the knife attack will appear in court on the 10th of June on attempted murder charges. The 40-year-old victim of the attack suffered eye injuries and knife wounds to his neck and back.
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