More riots in Belfast
2001-07-28 11:36
Belfast - A suspected Protestant
"loyalist" gunman opened fire during overnight riots at a
sectarian flashpoint in Northern Ireland's main city of
Belfast, wounding one man, witnesses said on Saturday.
Several volleys of shots - which Roman Catholics said came
from a Protestant area - were reported in the latest surge of
nightly violence that has deepened tension in the provincial
capital's rival zones.
A police spokeswoman said the victim had sustained a minor
face wound, "possibly caused by a ricocheting bullet".
Police said they were attacked with petrol bombs and stones
by rioters in cheek-by-jowl Roman Catholic and Protestants
districts. The spokeswoman said that there had been reports of
shots having been fired at police.
Gunfire crackled on a rock-strewn road in the Ardoyne area
as Sinn Fein party politician Gerry Kelly was being interviewed
by a Sky Television camera crew at the height of the unrest.
Sinn Fein is the political ally of the outlawed Irish
Republican Army, which has halted hostilities in a long war
aimed at ending rule from Britain.
As other Roman Catholics, fearing they were under fire,
shouted "get down", Kelly and the camera team ducked low for
cover.
"This is the fifth shooting that has taken place,"
protested Kelly, who accused the fiercely pro-British
Protestant Ulster Defence Association militia of orchestrating
the violence.
"The guy was shot in the face. He's very lucky to be
alive," he told reporters in Ardoyne, a sectarian hotspot,
after the shooting.
The ground was littered with broken glass and bricks and a
fleet of police and army vehicles formed a buffer between rival
crowds. Troops in riot gear blocked a street where Protestants
youths lobbed missiles at Catholics. By daylight the area was
tense but quiet.
Next week the British and Irish governments will give the
province's feuding political parties an anxiously-awaited
blueprint for rescuing the 1998 Good Friday peace accord.
Major guerrilla forces have maintained a truce, but the
accord is plagued with political difficulties and has failed to
erase deep-seated sectarian acrimony.