A woman was shot dead during riots in the Northern Irish city of Londonderry and the killing is being treated as a terrorist incident, police said yesterday, following the latest upsurge in violence to shake the troubled region.
Although the woman had yet to be formally identified, several reporters named her as Lyra McKee, a fellow journalist who had earlier posted an image that appeared to be from the riots in the city, also known as Derry, accompanied by the words “Derry tonight. Absolute madness.”
Images of the unrest posted on social media showed a car and van ablaze and hooded individuals throwing Molotov cocktails and fireworks at police vehicles.
Photo: AP / Press Association
“Sadly, I can confirm that following shots being fired tonight in Creggan, a 29-year-old woman has been killed,” Assistant Chief Constable Mark Hamilton said on Twitter. “We are treating this as a terrorist incident and we have launched a murder enquiry.”
It was not immediately clear who fired the shots that killed the woman, but a leading republican politician blamed “so-called dissidents.”
Journalist Matthew Hughes identified the dead woman as one of his friends, McKee.
“I just received the heartbreaking news that my friend @LyraMcKee was murdered tonight in a terrorist incident in Derry,” he said on Twitter.
Leona O’Neill, a reporter with the Belfast Telegraph, said that she had been next to the woman when she was shot.
“I was standing beside this young woman when she fell beside a police Land Rover tonight in Creggan #Derry. I called an ambulance for her but police put her in the back of their vehicle and rushed her to hospital where she died. Just 29 years old. Sick to my stomach tonight,” O’Neill said on Twitter.
The violence came in the run-up to Easter weekend, when Republicans opposed to the British presence in Northern Ireland mark the anniversary of a 1916 uprising against British rule.
A car-bombing and the hijacking of two vans in Londonderry earlier this year were also blamed on a dissident paramilitary group.
Michelle O’Neill, the deputy leader of Irish republican party Sinn Fein, condemned those responsible for the killing.
“My heart goes out to the family of the young woman shot dead by so-called dissidents,” she said on Twitter.
“This was an attack on the community, an attack on the peace process and an attack on the Good Friday Agreement,” she said, referring to a peace deal that largely brought an end to violence on the island 21 years ago.
Arlene Foster, leader of the Democratic Union Party, which is in favor of Britain’s presence in Northern Ireland, described the death as “heartbreaking news.”
“A senseless act. A family has been torn apart. Those who brought guns onto our streets in the 70s, 80s & 90s were wrong. It is equally wrong in 2019. No one wants to go back,” she said on Twitter.
The 1998 Good Friday Agreement largely brought an end to three decades of sectarian bloodshed in Northern Ireland between republican and unionist paramilitaries, as well as British armed forces, in a period known as “the Troubles.”
About 3,500 people were killed in the conflict — many at the hands of the Irish Republican Army (IRA).
Police have blamed a group called the New IRA for the flare-up in violence in the past few months.
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