The Belfast police had to use water cannons tonight against protesters in the streets of the capital of Northern Ireland, especially far-right sympathizers who set small fires and threw bricks, stones and bottles at the officers. It is a new night of brutal violence, after a stabbing in the middle of the street, which went viral and became a radical cry against migrants: the attacker was black and the aggressor was white.
Protesters, their faces covered with masks, tore bricks from the walls of houses and smashed sidewalks with sledgehammers to throw at riot police. At one point, the uncontrollable crowd used sections of a dismantled fence to take shelter in the street. Still, the tension was somewhat less than the previous night.
The clashes with police came several hours after a 30-year-old Sudanese man appeared in a Belfast court charged with attempted murder in a stabbing attack that left a man seriously injured and sparked anti-immigrant violence.
Hadi Alodid, 30, was remanded in custody yesterday after appearing by video link at Belfast Magistrates’ Court, where a detective testified that Alodid blinded Stephen Ogilvie in his left eye during the knife attack. He was also accused of illegal possession of a knife and threatening to kill this radiology technician.
When police arrived at the crime scene, they found Alodid next to the man, armed with a kitchen knife, the detective stated. Alodid later told hospital staff: “I have killed someone, I don’t know if he is dead,” adding: “I will kill you.” He refused legal representation through an Arabic interpreter and did not enter a plea of guilty or not guilty.
According to police, Alodid entered Northern Ireland from the neighboring Republic of Ireland in 2023, applied for asylum and was granted a five-year residence permit.
Police were prepared for more violence after masked men on Tuesday set fire to several homes they believed were housing migrants, burned rubbish bins, set fire to a Belfast bus and threw objects at officers. Firefighters rescued several people from burning homes and more than two dozen people were left homeless.
Anselme Shima, a Belfast resident originally from the Congo, said he saw smoke from burning vehicles near his home. “I’ve been living on my street for almost ten years, I have a good relationship with my neighbors, but last night was terrible,” he said. “We don’t know what to do. I’m scared. Seeing this, I wonder if I’ll be the next victim,” he tells AP.
Several families, one of them with a baby or residents of decades in the area, were rescued and taken to police stations for their safety, according to Jon Boutcher, chief constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland. “It was not just ethnic minority families, but families from all communities who were involved in this despicable behavior last night,” Boutcher told the BBC. “There is absolutely no excuse for it.”
Boutcher stated that 200 more officers would patrol the streets on Wednesday and that the Police of Northern Ireland (PSNI) would request support from other police forces. Belfast’s bus and train companies announced they were suspending services ahead of schedule due to anticipated protests.
humanity
Ogilvie’s family, on the opposite side of the far right, called for an end to the violence and stated that immigrants “make an extremely valuable contribution to our country.” “We do not want this terrible tragedy to be used to divide people or stoke hostility,” he said in a statement.
Politicians from both parties in Northern Ireland’s coalition government condemned the violence. Prime Minister Michelle O’Neill of the Irish nationalist party Sinn Féin called it “vandalism.” “That groups of masked men set fire to the homes of entire families is an act of disgusting cowardice,” he said, according to Reuters.
Deputy Prime Minister Emma Little-Pengelly of the pro-British Democratic Unionist Party said that “taking it out on those who had nothing to do with a person’s wrongdoing is completely wrong.”
…and manipulation
While the condition of the victim remains unclear, far-right activists encouraged online protests, and street violence broke out despite calls for calm from politicians.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer condemned the stabbing attack as “disgusting” but said violence against people because of their origin will not be tolerated. “The scenes in Belfast last night were shocking and completely unacceptable,” Starmer said on
Northern Ireland Justice Minister Naomi Long said agitators on social media, who “would have struggled to find Belfast on a map yesterday”, are “weaponizing” local people’s fears. “If people are thrown out of their homes based solely on the color of their skin, there is no other way to justify it: it is racism, and those who act in bad faith must step back,” he told the BBC.
Some groups are already raising questions about the Irish border, saying the stabbing should prompt a review of the open border between Northern Ireland, which is part of the United Kingdom, and the Republic of Ireland.
It is an extremely delicate topic. Allowing the free movement of people is a fundamental pillar of the peace process that largely ended decades of violence known as “The Troubles.” The conflict, which involved Irish republican and British unionist militants and UK security forces, left almost 3,600 dead before the 1998 peace agreement.
Much of Tuesday’s violence took place in working-class areas where former paramilitary groups still wield considerable influence on the streets.
Last week, a separate case, that of a university student who was fatally stabbed in Southampton, England, in December, was seized on by activists and US Vice President JD Vance, who blamed immigration for the violence, an idea rejected by Starmer and other British politicians.
Henry Nowak, who was white, was murdered by Vickrum Digwa, a Sikh who falsely reported to the police that he had been the victim of racist assault by Nowak. When officers arrived, they initially treated the injured Nowak as suspicious before realizing his injury and attempting to revive him.
Digwa was convicted of murder and sentenced last week to life in prison with a minimum sentence of 21 years. A protest over Nowak’s death turned violent, with some protesters attacking police with chairs and stones. Several people were charged with disorderly conduct.
