WITH petrol bombs lighting up the night sky and fireworks crackling over head, Ballymena was ablaze once again.
Balaclava-clad thugs hurled bricks, rocks and bottles — anything they could get their hands on — against a barricade of police Land Rover Tangis standing in their way.
With petrol bombs lighting up the night sky and fireworks crackling over head, Ballymena was ablaze once again[/caption]
View from a drone as violence flares on Tuesday[/caption]
Riot police form a barricade[/caption]
Riot officers blocking access to Bridge Street retaliated with water cannon and baton rounds.
But the dense crowd that had gathered outside Dreams department store only seemed more excited by the nightmare spectacle, whooping and taking pictures with their phones as spy drones hovered overhead.
This was the third night of anti- immigration protests in Northern Ireland and residents said it was a flashback to the worst days of the Troubles, when sectarian violence caused regular clashes with police.
Terrified Karen Portas, 54, said: “I haven’t seen anything like it since the 1970s and 1980s. I was scared for my life last night.
“I felt like I was living in Iraq with everything smashing and burning.
“The noise started at around midnight. I looked out of my window and saw a load of boys in balaclavas wielding baseball bats.
“These were young boys, just 14 to 15, but they were setting fire to houses without a care for who was inside — setting fire to homes owned by white people — and the police didn’t do a thing, so it’s no wonder the young people are not scared of them.
“When they unleashed the water cannon, they started cheering like they were at a water park.”
‘The lid came off’
Karen, who is retired on medical grounds, lives in the Clonavon Terrace area of Ballymena, which became the focus of the carnage this week.
Rioting erupted after a young girl was allegedly sexually assaulted by two 14-year-old boys, who were charged with attempted rape and then asked for a Romanian translator when they appeared at Coleraine Magistrates’ Court.
A peaceful protest began on Monday night then turned ugly as locals complained they were having foreigners and migrants “dumped” on their doorstep in record numbers.
A total of 15 officers were injured during clashes and four homes — including those of the alleged perpetrators — were attacked that night.
On Tuesday, more officers were injured and more homes set alight as the violence spread to other towns.
Gangs of feral masked teenagers returned to the streets on Wednesday, their mindless antics streamed across countless channels on social media.
I understand the anger. If it was my daughter that was attacked, I don’t know what I would do.
Karen, local
Cradling her dog TJ as she stood on the shattered glass outside her home, Karen said tensions with the Roma community lay behind the appalling scenes.
She said: “I understand the anger. If it was my daughter that had been attacked, I don’t know what I would do.
“People feel the Government is sending migrants here without any fact-checking.
“There are lots of Roma people now and the women and children are lovely, in my experience.
A hatchet, which was one of the objects hurled at officers[/caption]
A resident looks at a burnt car from the night before[/caption]
“It’s the men that are the problem. They put their furniture in the street and the way they leer at you when you walk past is disgusting.
“My daughter tells me they’ve opened brothels and girls are trafficked here to work in them.
“There’s a garage down that alleyway where they drink and take drugs and make noise throughout the night. It’s not acceptable, and this used to be a lovely place to live.
“But I’m one of the only Irish people left here now.”
Ballymena was still littered with riot debris on Wednesday, after many newcomers from Bulgaria, Poland and the Philippines decided to flee.
Smashed and boarded-up windows, gutted terraced houses and the charred outlines of torched cars could be seen across town, showing how the chaos had escalated. Cowering residents had taken to sticking Union Jacks to their doors, some even placing signs such as “Filipino lives here”, to deter further attacks.
As rumours spread that Unionist paramilitaries were behind the rampage, Northern Ireland Secretary Hilary Benn condemned what he termed “racist violence”.
If someone arrives here as an illegal immigrant or as a legal migrant, they will be given priority as the system will bend over backwards to find them housing.
DUP councillor Lawrie Philpott
But DUP councillor Lawrie Philpott insisted the clashes were an inevitable reaction to years of unchecked migration.
He told The Sun: “Protest is the wrong word. It was a gathering of about 5,000 people from across Northern Ireland who wanted to show their disgust at what is going on.
“The pot has boiled and it went bang — the lid came off. The issue is that you can’t find affordable housing to live in and when you go to the government to ask for help, you’re given the brush-off. And this all stems from Westminster.
“If someone arrives here as an illegal immigrant or as a legal migrant, they will be given priority as the system will bend over backwards to find them housing.
“That’s wrong and this is simmering across the whole of the province and across the UK.
“I see this going like a domino and it is mob rule and thuggery, but this is not racism. People feel they have nowhere else to go and what do you do when you’re stuck in a corner? You come out fighting.
“I’m a Ballymena man and this used to be 100 per cent British. The demographic started to change just five or seven years ago and people are angry.”
Situated in County Antrim, 25 miles north west of Belfast, Ballymena was where Unionist firebrand Ian Paisley, who died aged 88 in 2014, grew up.
His spirit lives on with Union Jacks lining almost every street ahead of the annual marching parade season, which starts next month.
The region is known as Northern Ireland’s equivalent of the Bible Belt, where Protestantism is the dominant religion and “drugs, the devil and debauchery” are abhorred.
Pensioner Trevor Boyd, 77, was handing out Christian leaflets on Wednesday.
He said: “I’m here to tell people that Jesus loves everyone no matter where you are from.
“Ballymena is a good town and while there has always been tension between Protestants and Catholics, I have never seen anything like this in my life.
Rioters’ graffiti[/caption]
A Bulgarian man surveys damage to his house[/caption]
“The issue is there have been a lot of people moving into the area who are not working and the numbers have escalated in recent years. People think that’s because of migrants crossing the Channel and it makes them angry. It became a bomb waiting to go off.
“It is like Southport in England. It just took this particular incident to start an explosion.”
‘They’re scared’
Butcher Martin Scullion, 59, slammed the government in Westminster.
He said: “They’re out of touch with what is going on here. The English don’t give a flying toss about us.
“If they had their way, they’d get rid of us.
“The older generation and youngsters can’t come out on the streets because they’re scared of being molested and touched.
“I’m not being racist, but it’s getting worse.
“I’ve heard there are gangs of Roma gypsies heading this way and filling up cans with fuel from the petrol station.
“I don’t know what they’re planning, it’s scary.
“I’ve run this butcher’s shop for ten years and it was a different place back then. It was grand, you knew everybody.
Last night was terrifying. We saw houses burning and people smashing the doors and throwing big rocks.
Kristine, relocated from the Philippines
“You don’t know who is on the streets now.
“I’ve had potatoes stolen from the shop and when the thief is arrested they say, ‘I don’t speak English’.”
Baker Kristine Landicho, 40, lives in Ballymena with her husband Elizer and son Prince, 11, having relocated from Philippines capital Manila.
She said: “Last night was terrifying. We saw houses burning and people smashing the doors and throwing big rocks.
“We’ve only been here for seven months. Before this it was quiet here and people were nice, but this week was scary.
“The first night it was locals attacking the houses and the second night it was people from all over Northern Ireland.
“The second night was the worst because there were so many cars and houses on fire.
“They think we are all the same and they don’t like mass migration. Luckily, they didn’t attack our house.
“I’m worried they will come for us again tonight. But as long as we are safe, we will keep living in Northern Ireland.”
Terrified Karen Portas, 54, said: ‘I haven’t seen anything like it since the 1970s and 1980s. I was scared for my life last night’[/caption]
Baker Kristine Landicho, 40, who lives in Ballymena with her husband Elizer and son Prince, 11, having relocated from Philippines capital Manila, was left terrified[/caption]
DUP councillor Lawrie Philpott insisted the clashes were an inevitable reaction to years of unchecked migration[/caption]
