Masked rioters in Northern Ireland attack police and ignite houses

Masked rioters in Northern Ireland attack police and ignite houses

In the Northern Irish city of Ballymena, there were serious riots on Tuesday when hundreds of hooded rioters attacked the police and set fire to houses and vehicles. These unrest followed a protest that was directed against an alleged sexual assault. The police reported that they were busy with a "serious disorder" in Ballymena, about 45 kilometers from the capital Belfast, and asked people to avoid the area.

attacks on the police and destruction

civil servants in control suits and in armored vehicles use water cannons and rubber bullets after they have been attacked with molotov cocktails, scaffolding and stones. These were procured by the rioters by tearing nearby walls, an eyewitness from Reuters reported. A house burned out completely and a police officer had to hand over after leaving another building in the other part of the city that the rioters also wanted to set fire. Several cars were set on fire, while one of the vehicles was upside down, while the police siren echoed the city around midnight.

incident classified as hate crimes

In the first night of the unrest on Monday, four houses were damaged by fire, and windows and doors of other houses and shops were broken. The police examined these incidents as possibly racially motivated hate attacks. Previously, hundreds of demonstrators in Ballymena had gathered on Monday to protest a case in which two teenagers appeared in court who were accused of sexually harassing a youthful girl in the Antrim district. According to local media reports, the charges were read out by an interpreter.

injured and other protests

15 police officers were injured on Monday, some of them needed treatment in the hospital. Separate protests blocked a few streets in Belfast on Tuesday morning, but no unrest was reported in other parts of the British region. The British government and local politicians condemned violence. "The terrible scenes of bourgeois unrest that we saw in Ballymena tonight have no place in Northern Ireland," said Hilary Been, the Minister for Northern Ireland, on X.