Ballymena, Northern Ireland
Reuters
—
Public disorder broke out in Northern Ireland for the third successive night on Wednesday with videos and pictures on social media purportedly showing a fire in a leisure center in the town of Larne after masked youths smashed the building’s windows.
Reuters could not immediately verify the authenticity of the clips.
Hundreds of masked rioters attacked police and set homes and cars on fire 33 kilometers (20 miles) west in Ballymena during the previous two nights in what police condemned as “racist thuggery.” Thirty-two officers were injured.
Riot police and armored vans blocked roads in Ballymena on Wednesday evening as a crowd of around 200 people watched on. Two rocks were thrown at a police van and one person kicked the bonnet of a police van, a Reuters witness said.
The police vans slowly moved towards the crowd who were warned over a loud speaker to disperse immediately as force was “about to be used against violent individuals.”
The violence initially erupted after two 14-year-old boys were arrested and appeared in court, accused of a serious sexual assault on a teenage girl in Ballymena, located 45 kilometers (28 miles) from Belfast.
The charges were read via a Romanian interpreter to the boys, whose lawyer told the court that they denied the charge, the BBC reported. Police are investigating the damaging of property in Ballymena as racially-motivated hate crimes.
