A bomb exploded in a trash can in Northern Ireland on Saturday and left three children with minor injuries, police said, amid a surge of unrest blamed on republicans seeking to destabilize the peace process.
The blast in Lurgan, County Armagh, injured a two-year-old and two 12-year-olds with its flying debris, the Police Service of Northern Ireland said. The attack — the latest in a series over recent days — came as security forces were focused on policing a major Protestant parade in Londonderry, the British province’s second biggest city.
Chief inspector Sam Cordner said the attack had been designed to lure in police officers and then injure or kill them, adding it was “an absolute miracle” that the children were not more seriously injured.
The blast “was an obvious attempt to kill police or injure police officers providing a service to this community as they responded to a neighboring area following a very vague warning that a device had been left at a local school,” he said.
No police were in the area when the blast hit, but “three young children were and they received injuries that left them badly shaken and requiring hospital treatment,” Cordner said. “It is an absolute miracle that these children were not more seriously injured by this sickening attack on the most vulnerable members of our community.”
Local lawmaker John O’Dowd, of republican party Sinn Fein, said: “Those who planted this device in the middle of this residential area obviously do not care who they hurt or kill and are void of any sense of social or political responsibility.”
Meanwhile, several people were arrested in Londonderry for disorderly behavior during the Protestant march, but it passed off without major incident after a protest by dissident republicans opposed to the province’s peace process canceled a protest. Republican groups have been blamed for a series of car bombings or attempted car bombings which targeted an army major, a policewoman and a civilian police worker in recent days.
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