Northern Ireland was on edge after Belfast erupted in violence following a brutal stabbing attack in the city this week.
The case has ignited simmering anti-immigrant sentiment. Far-right figures have called for crowds to take to the streets and said that the United Kingdom should oust millions of foreign-born people.
Political leaders are calling for restraint. The suspected attacker, a 30-year-old Sudanese refugee, appeared in court on Wednesday facing charges of attempted murder.
Here’s what’s happening in Belfast.
What happened in the attack?
The attacker stabbed another man around 10:30 p.m. on Monday at an apartment complex in northern Belfast, the police said. The police said officers arrived within minutes.
Graphic footage of the attack spread quickly on social media and prompted outrage from some commenters.
The clip shows a man mounted on the chest of another man, whose face and neck are covered in blood. The attacker moves his hands near the neck of the victim. A bystander can then be seen battering the attacker with a hurley, a long wooden stick used in the Irish sport of hurling.
What happened in the riots?
There were sporadic bursts of violence around Belfast and elsewhere in Northern Ireland on Tuesday night. Rioters torched cars, and garbage cans engulfed in flames were used to create roadblocks. Protesters set a city bus on fire in eastern Belfast.
Emergency responders escorted immigrant families from their homes, some of which had been set alight.
The authorities had prepared for violence with an increased police presence. Some evening transit services were canceled in advance. Some businesses and government offices closed early.
What is known about the suspect?
The suspect, whom the authorities identified as Hadi Alodid, was arrested and charged with attempted murder. He is a refugee from Sudan who is legally residing in the United Kingdom. The Home Office, the British department overseeing immigration and policing, said he had permission to live in the country until 2028. He entered the United Kingdom in 2023 and was granted refugee status that year.
A police official said on Tuesday that officers were working to determine a motive. They said that they were not looking for other suspects and that there was no indication to suggest the attack was terrorism.
What is known about the victim?
He is a man in his 40s, identified by the authorities as Steven Ogilvy. The police said he was in the hospital with serious injuries to his face, neck and back. He lost an eye as a result of the attack, according to the prosecutors who charged Mr. Alodid on Wednesday.
How has the far right responded?
Far-right activists posted video footage of the stabbing attack, filmed by bystanders, and spread misinformation and speculation about the attacker online. They called for mass deportations and published information about where to gather to protest.
Tommy Robinson, a far-right English agitator who has a number of criminal convictions, urged people to take to the streets after what he called on social media an “invader attack on our people.”
Elon Musk, the tech mogul, shared lists of locations around the United Kingdom for people to gather and shared posts by far-right figures in the country.
What’s the backdrop for the violence?
In recent years, other high-profile acts of violence have inflamed anti-immigrant sentiment in the United Kingdom.
Some officials and experts are worried about a glorification of extreme violence that has recently escalated online. Political leaders have tried to tamp down on rising xenophobic anger.
There are a few recent cases to note.
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Henry Nowak, an 18-year-old student, was stabbed in December in the southern English city of Southampton. This week, footage was released that showed him being handcuffed by the police as he lay dying, which fueled outrage and an increasingly politicized conversation online. The day after the footage was released, a night of protest devolved into violence in Southampton. The right-wing lawmaker Nigel Farage claimed that the police’s initial response — believing the account given by the attacker, a British-born Sikh man, instead of the victim’s — was evidence of “anti-white prejudice.”
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An earlier wave of anti-immigrant anger engulfed Northern Ireland in July 2025, after an alleged sexual assault in the town of Ballymena. Two 14-year-old boys were charged with attempted oral rape of a girl; they both denied the charges, the BBC reported, and spoke through a Romanian interpreter. Far-right agitators whipped up outrage that led to days of unrest. Houses and shops were set afire.
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In the summer of 2024, a teenager killed three children in a dance class in Southport, England, and wounded 10 other people. After disinformation about the attacker’s identity swirled, a series of anti-immigrant riots broke out in more than a dozen towns and cities in England and Northern Island. False claims that the attacker was an undocumented immigrant or a newly arrived asylum seeker were amplified by far-right agitators. The attacker, a deeply disturbed person who was 17 at the time of the rampage, is a British citizen who was born in Wales to parents from Rwanda.
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