Ireland’s Prime Minister, Taoiseach Micheál Martin, pleaded for calm on Saturday after a week of violent riots in Belfast, Northern Ireland – when officials raised the alarm over reports that children as young as 12 were participating.
“We owe it to the ‘deal generation’ and even future generations not to rewind to that dark place of sectarian killings and political divisions,” Martin said in a statement on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement. the 1998 accord that brought peace to Northern Ireland after decades of bloody conflict.
But growing frustration over new trade barriers between Northern Ireland and the UK in the wake of Brexit has sparked a week of unrest – with violent clashes between nationalists and loyalists setting fire to cars and buses and injuring multiple police officers.
Meanwhile, Northern Ireland’s Child and Youth Commissioner Koulla Yiasouma said 12- and 13-year-olds were involved in the riots.
“What we have is criminals controlling or forcing young people to trade drugs, engage in criminal activities and I would also have riots in the street,” she told The Guardian.
Attorney General Naomi Long condemned the trend as “nothing short of child abuse”.