Anti-immigration protesters torched buildings and vehicles in Belfast on Tuesday evening and blocked roads, a day after a stabbing allegedly by a Sudanese refugee, captured in a graphic video that shocked the country.
Hundreds of protesters, many masked, gathered at several locations across Belfast, AFP journalists saw. A bus and several cars were set alight, while a building fringing the city centre caught fire and its residents had to be evacuated.
"By 7:30 pm (18:30 GMT) they started (a) fire in the bins...we heard police cars and sirens," said one resident, Eemran, an engineer of Indian origin who has been living in Belfast for slightly over a year.
"More and more people started coming, they started throwing petrol bombs. Suddenly the fire started going...we had smoke inside the building...fire people came in and they said 'go down'," he said in broken English.
Camila, a 36-year-old Chilean who moved to Belfast a month ago, said it was "scary".
"Of course I'm not used to it," she said. "I understand the people's rage but also there are ways of discussing these things more peacefully".
Sky television showed other buildings on fire.
Police helicopters patrolled above the city and shops were also closed early.
Michelle O'Neill, the First Minister of Northern Ireland, slammed the protests and urged calm.
"Groups of masked men burning families out of their homes is nothing less than disgusting cowardice," she said on X.
"Racism, intimidation and violence are wrong wherever they occur. There can be no excuse and no justification for these attacks tonight. No one wants to see this on our streets and I again appeal for calm".
Crowds also gathered in Antrim, around 25 kilometres (15 miles) west of Belfast.
US tech billionaire Elon Musk had earlier retweeted a post by anti-immigration activist Stephen Yaxley-Lennon -- also known as Tommy Robinson -- adding: "Only by protesting REPEATEDLY and LOUDLY will there be any change!!".
The suspect in the knife attack, whose name has not been released, was charged late Tuesday with attempted murder, possession of a bladed weapon in a public place and making threats to kill. The 30-year-old man is due to appear in court on Wednesday.
As anti-immigration figures, including Reform party leader Nigel Farage and Restore Britain leader Rupert Lowe, demanded details about the attacker, the interior ministry confirmed he was a Sudanese refugee with a residence permit valid until 2028.
Northern Ireland police chief Jon Boutcher said he had arrived in the UK in 2023 via Paris and Dublin.
Tensions were already high in Britain after violent skirmishes last week in Southampton, southern England, over the police handling of the murder of a young white student stabbed to death by a British Sikh man.
On Tuesday, dozens of demonstrators also gathered there outside a hotel housing asylum seekers, carrying banners reading "no racism, just patriotism" and "enough is enough".
The video from Belfast shows a man straddling another man lying in a street and slashing him several times in the head and neck with a knife, in what far-right figures claimed was an attempted beheading.
Several people can then be seen intervening, one wielding a hurling stick, and tackling the perpetrator as police arrive.
The victim, a man in his 40s, "was taken to hospital with significant injuries to his eyes and serious slash wound injuries to his back and face," he told reporters.
Officers recovered what is believed to be a kitchen knife at the scene, Henderson confirmed.
A 31-year-old mother-of-one who lives nearby said the incident had terrified the neighbourhood. "We're just living in fear now," she told AFP.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer called the incident "horrific" and "sickening" on X.
The leaders of Northern Ireland's five main political parties issued a joint statement condemning the incident, saying "there is no place in our society for this kind of brutality".
The leaders and police urged people not to share the video, noting its "graphic nature would only serve to retraumatise those involved".
But numerous social media accounts linked to so-called "patriots" were sharing the footage, urging people to "protest against mass immigration into their communities".
The UK interior ministry confirmed the Sudanese suspect entered the country in 2023 and acquired refugee status the same year, allowing him to remain until 2028.
"There is no trace of this suspect on any of our national security databases, and he was not known to the Police Service of Northern Ireland," police chief Boutcher said.
Immigration has become a hot-button issue in Britain, and helped fuel the rise of the hard-right Reform UK party in the polls.
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