{"id":61522,"date":"2026-06-12T12:11:20","date_gmt":"2026-06-12T12:11:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/61522\/"},"modified":"2026-06-12T12:11:20","modified_gmt":"2026-06-12T12:11:20","slug":"they-threw-a-stone-at-my-head-while-i-was-in-my-nursing-uniform-i-dont-think-i-can-stay-anymore-nigerian-nurse-no-longer-feels-safe-in-belfast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/61522\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018They threw a stone at my head while I was in my nursing uniform, I don\u2019t think I can stay anymore\u2019- Nigerian nurse no longer feels safe in Belfast"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Nigerian nurse who has worked in Belfast for five years has said the latest scenes of racist violence<\/a> has made her want to leave Northern Ireland.<\/p>\n

Chinonso Uche first arrived to work in the health service during the pandemic, following her sister who also works in Belfast as a hospital nurse. <\/p>\n

Currently working in a care home, she has also built a large social media following posting about her nursing career and life in Northern Ireland.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s actually a very scary and hard time as a healthcare worker to be honest,\u201d she told the Irish News.<\/p>\n

\"‘They<\/a>\"A<\/a><\/p>\n

Initially unaware of Monday night\u2019s stabbing attack in north Belfast, she had turned up for her 12 hour shift the following morning to find colleagues sharing social media messages about the many protests that would soon escalate into racist violence.<\/p>\n

Forced to leave early to get home safely, other colleagues had to be escorted home by police.<\/p>\n

\"PolicePolice came under attack in the Sandyknowes area of Newtownabbey on Wednesday night. PICTURE: MAL MCCANN <\/p>\n

With the riots now a yearly event in Northern Ireland, she said: \u201cLast year it was against the Romanians and it\u2019s just the same story. I haven\u2019t felt the way I feel this time.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo be honest I don\u2019t think I can stay anymore, because even when you come online to share your story people are still attacking you and telling you to go home.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey don\u2019t even care if you are a legal or an illegal immigrant. They don\u2019t care about your mental health.<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember sharing the story about how I was racially attacked last summer. <\/p>\n

\u201cThese boys used a stone and they hit me on the head on my way back from work all dressed in my nursing uniform.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat was the response when I shared my story online? It was \u2018Ireland is tired of immigrants, you should go back home.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cNobody cares what you do, even though they know I\u2019m a nurse. There is no safety for us, that is the truth. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to save our own lives at this point. I am looking at renewing my licence back home and also in Australia and the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"VehiclesVehicles were set on fire by protesters on Lendrick Street in Belfast, as disorder flared in response to Monday night\u2019s stabbing attack in the city. (PA\/PA) <\/p>\n

This week, a trade union also reported migrant health workers being followed from their homes while the South Eastern Trust condemned a racist incident in which a nurse was \u201cchased and intimidated\u201d by four masked men on her way to work in the Ulster Hospital. <\/p>\n

The UUP leader Jon Burrows called the attackers \u201cthe scum of the earth\u201d and \u201ctraitors to our country\u201d.<\/p>\n

Ms Uche says her wish to leave Northern Ireland is a painful decision after dedicating five years to the health service.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s hard. My sister moved here before me and is the reason I came here. We are very happy to work for the NHS providing critical care during Covid .<\/p>\n

\u201cWe all had Covid, we healed and kept on showing up to work. When everything is turning back to normal, they start attacking you and telling you to go back home.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat is so surprising is that it\u2019s not like the NHS is overstaffed. If you send all the immigrants home, who is going to be in your hospitals and care homes?<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think it makes sense to anybody, they judge me for the colour of my skin and that\u2019s all.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a recent video post to her nearly 30,000 followers on Instagram she shared her sympathies with the family of stabbing victim Stephen Ogilvie, for which Sudanese national Hadi Olidid has been arrested of attempted murder, <\/a><\/p>\n

She added: \u201cThose that have racism in their heart, it can never make sense to them. They will always look for something to justify their hate and look for every reason to show their racism.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I\u2019m going to end this here and go to work as a nurse, when I go in and I hold the hands of your parents, your aged parent, as someone that works in elderly care and try to put smile on their face, I will remind them of all you said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat we don\u2019t belong here and why we might be leaving (for) you to come take care of them yourself.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Nigerian nurse who has worked in Belfast for five years has said the latest scenes of racist…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":61523,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4],"tags":[10346,29743,5,6],"class_list":["post-61522","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-uk","tag-belfast","tag-health-and-social-care","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@UnitedKingdom\/116737073649949535","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61522","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61522"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61522\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61523"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61522"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61522"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61522"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}