Rioters on Thursday night waged a running battle with police in Belfast — tossing Molotov cocktails, setting fires and dodging jets from water cannons as a week of unrest showed no sign of letting up.
Hundreds of boys and young men gathered from early evening in a western neighborhood in the Northern Ireland capital, which has been riven by violence over Brexit and domestic politics.
Masked and in hooded tops, they hurled rocks, bricks and glass bottles at police barricades where riot officers formed ranks with armored Land Rovers.
Photo: AFP
Fire bombs burst into flames in the street and fireworks were aimed into police formations, exploding and smothering their lines in thick smoke.
Behind riot shields and with batons drawn, police drove back the surging crowds late into the night, as locals peered out of their windows to witness the spectacle.
When one group tried to push a vandalized vehicle into the police barricades, a lumbering water cannon forced them away with powerful spraying jets.
A police loudhailer warned crowds to disperse or face arrest.
“Force may be used,” the female voice said.
Northern Ireland was the site of “The Troubles” sectarian conflict, which wound down in 1998 — but Brexit has been partially blamed for igniting old tensions.
The unrest started last week in the pro-UK unionist community, where tensions are high because of new post-Brexit rules some feel are dividing the region from Britain.
The pro-Ireland nationalist community has begun to respond in scenes like those on Thursday night.
Nationalist and unionist communities in Belfast are often separated by towering “peace walls” to guard against projectiles.
On Wednesday there were ugly scenes when warring groups from unionist and nationalist communities faced off at a gate in the peace wall between their neighborhoods.
The doors are etched with a slogan reading: “There was never a good war or a bad peace.”
The gates were pried open and rioters traded missiles in vicious confrontations.
“It’s deep rooted, it’s not just about Brexit although Brexit has done something as well obviously,” Belfast native Fiona McMahon said.
“We have been scuppered big time,” she said, voicing the sense of exasperation many here feel over Britain’s split from the EU.
The rising unrest has caused a political crisis in Northern Ireland, with the regional assembly recalled to address the violence.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Irish Taoiseach Micheal Martin and US President Joe Biden have all called for calm.
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