Youths from Ardoyne area of Northern Belfast throw stones at police vehicles trying to calm down the riots aroused after a sectarian dispute.
PHOTO – TASR/AP
Up to 500 Catholics and Protestants battled in the streets around Holy Cross Primary School in north Belfast, with police coming under „sustained and highly orchestrated“ attack when they moved in to separate the rival factions. Riot police were pelted with petrol bombs, acid bombs, flares, fireworks, bricks and bottles, and responded by firing plastic baton rounds, hitting seven people.
A spokesman said 14 officers were hurt in the clashes — which began on Wednesday afternoon and continued into the early hours of Thursday — and four Catholics were wounded when a gunman opened fire with a shotgun. None was badly hurt. The fresh violence raised fears of a new blockade of the school, which last year witnessed ugly clashes during a 12-week Protestant protest which became a symbol for the sectarian hatreds that still divide north Belfast. Both sides blamed each other for the trouble, which police said started after an altercation between two women as Catholic parents went to collect their children from the school, located in a Protestant enclave bordering a Catholic neighbourhood.
Police discovered three crates of ready-made petrol bombs during the overnight violence and believe shadowy guerrilla groups on both sides helped stir up the violence. The school itself was quiet on Thursday morning after the governors decided to close it for the day, saying they feared for the children‘s safety.
Simmering tensions in the area boiled over last year and the army had to be called in to escort the young children to school through jeering crowds. Protestant residents called off their protest in November. The school dispute underscored the economic forces behind the endless conflicts in parts of Northern Ireland, with rival communities living cheek-by-jowl in areas with high unemployment and fierce competition for jobs and housing. A 1998 peace agreement has calmed three decades of armed conflict in the British province. Many Catholics want it to become part of the Irish republic, while most of the Protestant majority want it to stay linked to Britain. Reuters
