Northern Ireland hit by third night of violence but main flashpoint calmer
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Police aim a water cannon at demonstrators as riots continue in Ballymena, Northern Ireland on June 11.
PHOTO: REUTERS
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BALLYMENA, Northern Ireland - Violence erupted in different parts of Northern Ireland for the third successive night on June 11, with masked youths starting a fire in a leisure centre, but unrest in the primary flashpoint of Ballymena was notably smaller in scale.
Hundreds of masked rioters injured police and set homes and cars on fire in the town of Ballymena, a town of 30,000 people located 45km from Belfast, on the night of June 10 in what police condemned as “racist thuggery.”
The violence flared on June 9 after two 14-year-old boys were arrested and appeared in court earlier that day, accused of a serious sexual assault on a teenage girl in the town.
The charges were read via a Romanian interpreter to the boys, whose lawyer told the court that they denied the charge, the BBC reported.
Police are investigating the damaging of properties on June 9 and June 10 in Ballymena, which has a relatively large migrant population, as racially-motivated hate crimes.
Two Filipino families told Reuters they fled their home in the town on the night of June 10 after fearing for their safety when their car was set on fire outside the house.
A few dozen masked youths threw some rocks, fireworks and petrol bombs at police after officers in riot gear and armoured vans blocked roads in the town on the evening of June 11.
Police deployed water cannon against them for the second successive night but the clashes were nothing like the previous night that left 17 officers injured and led to five arrests.
Much of the crowd had left the streets before midnight.
A small number of riot police were also in the town of Larne 30km west where masked youths smashed the windows of a leisure centre before starting fires in the lobby, BBC footage showed.
Swimming classes were taking place when bricks were thrown through the windows and staff had to barricade themselves in before running out the back door, a local Alliance Party lawmaker, Mr Danny Donnelly, told the BBC.
Northern Ireland’s Communities Minister Gordon Lyons had earlier posted on Facebook that a number of people had been temporarily moved to the leisure centre following the disturbances in Ballymena, before then being moved out of Larne.
The comments drew sharp criticism from other political parties for identifying a location used to shelter families seeking refuge from anti-immigrant violence.
Lyons condemned the attacks on the centre.
Police said youths also set fires at a roundabout in the town of Newtownabbey, a flashpoint for sectarian violence that sporadically flares up in the British-run region 27 years after a peace deal largely ended three decades of bloodshed.
Debris was also set alight at a barricade in Coleraine, the Belfast Telegraph reported.
The British and Irish governments as well as local politicians have condemned the violence. REUTERS
