Twenty-one police officers injured during rioting at height of Ulster loyalist marching season
The Real IRA paramilitary group was behind last night’s violence in north Belfast, Sinn Féin said today.
Twenty-one police officers sustained injuries at several sectarian flashpoints across Northern Ireland at the climax of the Ulster loyalist marching season.
During the disturbances in north Belfast at least one shot was fired at police by republicans from the Ardoyne district and there were other disturbances after Orange Order parades. A masked rioter could be seen firing a shot at Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) officers at the Ardoyne shops.
Sinn Féin’s Gerry Kelly said dissident republicans, from the Real IRA, were orchestrating the violence.
At the height of the rioting women in Ardoyne found children playing with a loaded rifle and handed it into police.
Petrol bombs, fireworks, stones, and bottles were thrown at police after they tried to move rioters away from a parade route. Two of three hijacked vans were pushed at police lines.
The Ardoyne priest Father Gary Donegan said the trouble was started by outsiders.
“Myself and many people were looking at people last night that we’d never seen in the area before in our lives.
“It was as if people had been bussed into the area for this very purpose and that this was being very much orchestrated,” he said.
A PSNI spokesman said there would be a “rigorous investigation” to identify those who had taken part in the violence.
There were other disturbances in Derry and the Country Antrim village of Rasharkin overnight after nationalist demonstraters attacked police officers wedged between them and Orangemen and their supporters.
