Hundreds of masked rioters attacked police and set homes and cars on fire in the Northern Irish town of Ballymena on Tuesday, in the second successive night of disorder that followed a protest over an alleged sexual assault in the town.
Seventeen officers were injured, bringing to 32 the number hurt since the violence began Monday following a large protest over an alleged sexual assault in the town.
Two 14-year-old boys appeared in court that day, accused of sexually assaulting a teenage girl. The charges were read to the teenagers via a Romanian interpreter, the BBC reported. A lawyer told the court that the two teenagers denied the charge. They were remanded in custody until July 2.
Police are investigating attacks on properties Monday that saw four houses damaged by fire as racially-motivated “hate crimes”.
“The mindless violence witnessed over the past two nights in Ballymena is deeply concerning and utterly unacceptable,” Police Service of Northern Ireland Chief Constable Jon Boutcher said in a statement on Wednesday.
“Hate-fueled acts and mob rule do nothing but tear at the fabric of our society… This behavior must stop.”
One Romanian resident told the Irish Times on Tuesday that she was putting a British flag on her front window in a bid to prevent being targeted. Another door had a British and Filipino flag with a message saying “Filipino lives here”, a photograph in The Belfast Telegraph showed.
Five people were arrested on suspicion of riotous behavior in Ballymena, located 45 kilometres (28 miles) from the capital Belfast, following one arrest there on Monday, police said on Wednesday.
Police in Northern Ireland sporadically come under attack whenever tensions rise in parts of the British region, 27 years after a peace deal ended three decades of sectarian bloodshed there.
Officers in riot gear and driving armored vans responded on Tuesday with water cannon and non-lethal rounds, known as attenuated energy projectiles, after being attacked by petrol bombs, scaffolding and rocks that rioters gathered by knocking down nearby walls, a Reuters witness said.
One house was burned out and a police officer vomited after leaving another in a different part of the town that rioters had attempted to set alight, the witness added.
A number of cars were set on fire and one lay upside down in flames as police sirens blared throughout the town past midnight.
Separate protests Tuesday blocked off some roads in Belfast, another Reuters witness said.
Bins were set alight and bottles and masonry thrown at police following protests in the towns of Newtownabbey and Carrickfergus, police said. Police also reported some incidents in north Belfast.
The British government and local politicians condemned the violence.
“The terrible scenes of civil disorder we have witnessed in Ballymena again this evening have no place in Northern Ireland,” Britain’s Northern Ireland Minister Hilary Benn said on X.
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