A minimum of 17 police were injured and five were arrested during the second night of ‘racially motivated’ Ballymena disorder. Masked rioters have attacked police and burned homes and vehicles in Northern Ireland’s Ballymena for a second night in disorder that police have termed “racially motivated” after a protest over a supposed sexual assault in the town.
Police announced on Wednesday that they had made five arrests “on suspicion of riotous behaviour” and that 17 officers were injured, “with some requiring hospital treatment”, during the night’s violence in the town, some 45km (30 miles) from the capital, Belfast.
During a second night of violence and disorder, much in the Clonavon Terrace area of Ballymena, officers were subjected to sustained attack for many hours with several petrol bombs, heavy masonry, bricks and fireworks thrown in their direction,” the Police Service of Northern Ireland stated.
Riot police were used, firing plastic baton rounds, and deploying water cannon and dog units as part of the response to the riot. One dwelling was torched and rioters tried to burn down a second home, reports state, while several cars were torched.
The Belfast Telegraph newspaper indicated that some people in Ballymena have begun marking their front doors to declare their nationality in a bid to prevent an attack, while Irish media suggest that a call has been made for protests to be organized elsewhere in towns and cities in Northern Ireland, part of the United Kingdom.
In earlier attacks on Monday, four houses were burned, and windows and doors were broken in other businesses and homes, police said they are probing as racially motivated hate crimes.
In a statement issued together, ministers from throughout Northern Ireland’s powersharing Executive – consisting of Sinn Fein, the Democratic Unionist Party, the Alliance Party and the Ulster Unionist Party – stated that rioters have nothing to contribute to society but “division and disorder”.
“Those awful images of civil unrest we have seen in Ballymena once again this evening have no place in Northern Ireland,” the UK minister for Northern Ireland, Hilary Benn, tweeted.
