Shots fired in new sectarian violence
Shots were fired in flashpoint north Belfast as sectarian tensions erupted in the area overnight.
Catholic homes were hit by paint bombs and windows were smashed as rival loyalist and nationalist mobs clashed in the troubled Ardoyne district.
Two pipe bombs discovered in the area were defused by Army explosives experts.
A police spokesman today confirmed that a patrol heard a number of shots in the Protestant Glenbryn enclave, which backs directly on to Catholic lower Ardoyne.
Tensions in the area have erupted into sporadic outbreaks of rioting ever since loyalists picketed the Holy Cross girls’ primary school last year.
Houses on Alliance Avenue, which splits the two communities and in the Cliftondene and Old Park areas, were attacked.
One Catholic resident from Cliftondene Park whose home was hit with paint said it was the eighth attack on her home within 12 months.
‘‘We are just bearing up as best we can. This is our home, it has been our home for 27 years and I find it absolutely disgusting that somebody can just come along and do this,’’ she said.
North Belfast SDLP councillor Martin Morgan hit out at the loyalist gang he said was behind the attack.
He demanded more arrests, and went on: ‘‘They were on foot hundreds of yards from their own district and they got back to their own district safely.
‘‘Out of those eight attacks in the last year no one has ever been arrested, no one has ever been prosecuted.’’
