On another night of violence in the British province, Northern Irish police said on Sunday (April 4th) that they were subjected to a “Orchestrated attack”. “Last night people again took to the streets of Northern Ireland to protest violently”, when 20 to 30 people gathered on Saturday evening in Newtownabbey, in the northern suburbs of Belfast. According to a Northern Irish police official, Davy Beck, “A total of 30 Molotov cocktails were thrown at the police and three vehicles (…) were set on fire. It was an orchestrated attack on the police “.
A 47-year-old man was arrested and taken into custody on Sunday. The police official called for an end to the violence. “No one wants to go back to the dark days when riots were rife on the streets of Northern Ireland”, he argued.
On Friday, several police officers were injured in violent incidents that took place in Londonderry (north) and in a loyalist area of Belfast. Already, the British Minister responsible for Northern Ireland, as well as the police, had called for calm in the aftermath of these events. In Northern Ireland, tensions are exacerbated by growing discontent over the consequences of Brexit, fully implemented since January 1.
Unionists, supporters of maintaining in the United Kingdom, reject the protocol negotiated between London and Brussels, which introduces controls on goods arriving in Northern Ireland from Great Britain. This protocol is intended to prevent the return of a border between the British province and the Republic of Ireland (member of the EU) which would risk weakening the peace concluded in 1998, after three decades of deadly unrest.
Tensions have also increased this week following a controversial decision. Twenty-four members of the Republican Sinn Fein Party, including Deputy Prime Minister Michelle O’Neill, attended the funeral of a former Irish Republican Army figurehead in June 2020. Despite restrictions put in place against the coronavirus, they were not prosecuted.
