Riot police were pelted with petrol bombs, masonry and fireworks and nine officers were wounded in the third night of unrest in Northern Ireland, police said on Thursday amid simmering anti-immigrant anger.
The three days of clashes in Ballymena erupted on Monday night after two teenagers were arrested for an alleged attempted rape of a young girl at the weekend.
Police have not confirmed the ethnicity of the teenagers, who remain in custody and had asked for a Romanian interpreter in court.
The crowds eventually dispersed late Wednesday without a repeat of the chaotic scenes seen on Monday and Tuesday when houses and businesses were torched and 32 police officers were injured.
But in Larne, around 20 miles (32 kilometres) away, local media reported that masked men on Wednesday torched a leisure centre that was temporarily sheltering people from Ballymena who had been evacuated from their homes.
Police condemned Wednesday night’s violence, which included a hatchet being thrown at officers, calling it “completely unacceptable disorder”. Six more people were arrested, the Police Service of Northern Ireland said.
“As a result of a significant policing operation calm was restored to all areas at around 1:00 am (0000 GMT) this morning,” the force added.
Three teenage boys aged 15, 17 and 18 were due to appear in court on Thursday having been charged with rioting, according to police.
A total of 41 officers have now been hurt in the three nights of unrest, the PSNI said, though most of the injuries were not severe.
Ministers from every party in the province’s power-sharing executive strongly condemned “the racially motivated violence witnessed in recent days”, while UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer denounced the “mindless violence”.
The UK’s Northern Ireland minister Hilary Benn, who visited Ballymena on Thursday, said he “utterly condemned the terrible scenes of civil disorder”.
– ‘Terrifying’ –
Police called the violence “racist thuggery”, deployed riot officers with dogs and asked forces in England and Wales for help quelling the unrest.
Assistant Chief Constable Ryan Henderson said Thursday that “this criminal behaviour has no place on the streets of Northern Ireland and is completely unacceptable”.
On the fire in Larne, police said: “Shockingly, people were inside the building at the time of this fire -– thankfully no injuries were reported.”
Ballymena residents have described “terrifying” scenes in which attackers had targeted “foreigners” over the previous days.
Some people fixed signs to their houses indicating they were Filipino residents, or hung up British flags.
Political commentator Alex Kane, a former Ulster Unionist Party communications chief, told AFP “most of those involved in the rioting… were from the working-class loyalist community” who support Northern Ireland remaining part of the UK.
“This is a demographic which feels left behind” by various political and social forces, he added.
“An unsettled community, particularly when it is mostly composed of the young, is often quick to anger and easy to mobilise on the street. It’s a problem which won’t disappear any time soon,” he warned.
While acknowledging the protests were a “bit extreme”, college student Lee Stewart described them as necessary “to defend our own people”.
“We view it as the police aren’t doing anything to stop what is going on to those poor wee girls,” Stewart, 18, said.
