Police in Northern Ireland have used water cannons and dogs to contain fresh riots in Belfast.
Armored Land Rovers and officers with helmets and shields were deployed Thursday night after crowds collided on the Lanark Way interface separating the nationalist Springfield Road from the loyalist Shankill Road.
Police used water cannon for the first time in six years after dozens of young people on Springfield Road ignored a warning to disperse, still throwing stones, bottles and fireworks.
The gathering on Shankill Road was smaller and less violent, which was a relative silence in loyalist violence after seven nights of unrest in loyalist areas in Northern Ireland.
Justice Minister Naomi Long has called for an end to the violence. “More attacks on the police, this time from nationalist youths,” she tweeted. “Completely reckless and depressing to see more violence at interfaces tonight. My heart goes out to those who live in the area who live with this fear and disorder. It must stop now before lives are lost. ”
Northern Ireland Secretary of State Brandon Lewis would speak to political leaders and Chief Constable Simon Byrne later on Friday.
He will try to build on the political momentum from Thursday when the power-sharing manager and the meeting in Stormont meet to condemn the violence, which was fueled on the loyalist side by anger over the border to the Irish Sea border and a decision not to prosecute. Sinn Féin politicians who attended a large funeral for Bobby Storey, a former IRA commander, despite restrictions on the closure of Covid.
Boris Johnson and his Irish counterpart Micheál Martin on Thursday made a joint appeal for calm after talking by telephone. A White House spokesman added the Biden administration’s voice in appeals for calm.
Anonymous social media reports claiming to be from loyalist activists – they use the names of historical figures such as Edward Carson – called for further rallies this weekend. Many of the accounts have been drawn up in recent days and are apparently being falsified, leaving the situation unclear.
Key politicians have called on the Council Loyalist Communities, an umbrella group for paramilitary groups, to issue a statement condemning the violence and explaining what role paramilitary players played in the unrest.
Billy Hutchinson, a Belfast city councilor with the Progressive Unionist Party (PUP), which is in line with the Ulster Volunteer Force paramilitary group, expressed cautious optimism that the violence would subside. “I hope we are over it and that people will see the point,” he told BBC Radio Ulster on Friday. “Violence does not promote the union.”
Simon Coveney, the Irish foreign secretary, told the same program that the Irish and British governments were working with the political parties of the region and the executive to stabilize the unrest.
‘The leadership must come from political parties in Northern Ireland, including the executive, but the governments must definitely be there to support them. Whatever we as governments in Dublin and in London can do, we must do to support a calm and united message of politics on this island and in the United Kingdom. ‘