Hundreds of masked rioters have attacked police and set homes and cars on fire in Northern Ireland’s Ballymena in the second night of disorder described as “racially motivated” by police following a protest over an alleged sexual assault in the town.
Police said they were dealing with “serious disorder” on Tuesday night in the town, located about 45km (30 miles) from the capital Belfast, and urged people to avoid the area.
Officers in riot gear and driving armoured vehicles responded with water cannon and firing plastic baton rounds after being attacked with Molotov cocktails, steel scaffolding poles and rocks that rioters gathered by knocking down nearby walls, the Reuters news agency reports.
One house was burned out and rioters attempted to set a second home alight, according to reports, while several cars were set on fire.
The Belfast Telegraph newspaper said that some residents in Ballymena have started to mark their front doors to indicate their nationality to avoid attack, while Irish media outlets report that a call has gone out for protests to be held in other towns and cities in Northern Ireland, currently part of the United Kingdom.
During earlier violence on Monday, four houses were damaged by fire and windows and doors were smashed in other homes and businesses, in what police said they are investigating as racially-motivated hate attacks.
“The terrible scenes of civil disorder we have witnessed in Ballymena again this evening have no place in Northern Ireland,” the UK’s Northern Ireland minister, Hilary Been, said in a post on social media.
“There is absolutely no justification for attacks on PSNI [Police Service of Northern Ireland] officers or for vandalism directed at people’s homes or property,” he said.
Unrest first erupted on Monday night after a vigil in a neighbourhood of Ballymena where an alleged sexual assault occurred on Saturday. The trouble began when people in masks “broke away from the vigil and began to build barricades, stockpiling missiles and attacking properties”, police said.
Two teenage boys, charged by police with the attempted rape of a teenage girl, had appeared in court earlier in the day, where they had asked for a Romanian interpreter, local media reports said.
Tensions in the town, which has a large migrant population, remained high throughout Tuesday, with residents describing the scenes as “terrifying” and telling reporters that those involved were targeting “foreigners”.
“This violence was clearly racially motivated and targeted at our minority ethnic community and police,” Northern Ireland Assistant Chief Constable Ryan Henderson said.
The Police Service of Northern Ireland said it was investigating “hate attacks” on homes and businesses and that 15 officers were injured in the rioting on Monday, including some who required hospital treatment.
Cornelia Albu, 52, a Romanian migrant and mother-of-two who lives opposite a house targeted in the attacks, said her family has been “very scared”.
“Last night, it was crazy, because too many people came here and tried to put the house on fire,” Albu, who works in a factory, told the AFP news agency.
She said she would now have to move, but was worried she would not find another place to live because she was Romanian.
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