(Reuters) – Cars were set on fire and masked people pelted a police van with petrol bombs on Saturday on the second consecutive evening of disorder in pro-British parts of Northern Ireland amid mounting tensions in the region following Brexit.
Many pro-British unionists have strongly opposed the new trade barriers introduced between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK as part of Britain’s exit from the EU and have warned that their unease could lead to violence.
Political leaders, including the British Secretary of Northern Ireland, had called for calm earlier on Saturday, but police said they were attending reports of disorder in Newtownabbey on the northern outskirts of Belfast.
A video posted on Twitter by the Police Federation for Northern Ireland showed four masked individuals throwing gasoline bombs at an armored police van at close range, kicking and punching them as well.
Fifteen officers were injured near Sandy Row in Belfast on Friday when a small local protest turned into a riot. Police said the rioters attacked them with masonry, metal rods, fireworks and manhole covers.
The injuries included burns, head wounds and a broken leg, resulting in the arrest and indictment of seven people, two of them only 13 and 14. Twelve officers were also injured in separate riots on Friday in the city of Londonderry.
Other political parties blamed the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) of Northern Ireland’s Prime Minister Arlene Foster on Saturday for fueling tensions with their staunch opposition to the new trade arrangements.
“With their words and actions, they have sent a very dangerous message to young people in loyalist areas,” said Gerry Kelly, a lawmaker for the pro-Irish Sinn Fein party, which shares power in the decentralized government with the DUP. a statement. .
A DUP lawmaker, Christopher Stalford, said rioters “acted out of frustration” after prosecutors chose not to charge members of Sinn Fein last week with alleged violations of COVID-19 restrictions.
The DUP has called for the chief of police to resign over the matter.
The British-led region remains deeply divided along sectarian lines, 23 years after a peace deal largely ended three decades of bloodshed. Many Catholic nationalists are striving for unification with Ireland, while Protestant unionists want to stay in the UK.
Reporting by Padraic Halpin in Dublin; Editing by Daniel Wallis