{"id":1021768,"date":"2026-06-12T11:13:19","date_gmt":"2026-06-12T11:13:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1021768\/"},"modified":"2026-06-12T11:13:19","modified_gmt":"2026-06-12T11:13:19","slug":"riots-violence-hate-anti-immigrant-unrest-spells-danger-in-belfast-race-issues-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1021768\/","title":{"rendered":"Riots, violence, hate: Anti-immigrant unrest spells danger in Belfast | Race Issues News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Belfast, Northern Ireland \u2013\u00a0<\/strong>When violence broke out in east Belfast near Zeinab\u2019s home, as a mother of three from Sudan, she felt terrified.<\/p>\n

Anti-immigrant rioters have carried out a wave of racist attacks<\/a> in the Northern Irish capital after a knife attack<\/a> on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of list<\/p>\n

The alleged assailant, a 30-year-old Sudanese national who entered Northern Ireland through Ireland, has been charged with attempted murder. The victim, 44-year-old Stephen Ogilvie, remains in hospital with life-changing injuries to his face and back, having reportedly lost an eye.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe strongly condemn and reject what happened,\u201d said Zeinab, who requested to withhold her surname. \u201cUnfortunately, it turned out that (the suspect) is of Sudanese nationality. But this is the opposite of what is known about our Sudanese people. They are kind people, known for their generosity, their morals, and the way they treat others.\u201d<\/p>\n

As agitators burned homes and businesses they believed to be owned by ethnic minorities, Zeinab asked an NGO, the Anaka Women\u2019s Collective, to evacuate her family.<\/p>\n

Like other people of colour, she was welcomed by an Irish family and is now taking shelter outside Belfast.<\/p>\n

\u201cMay God reward them with all goodness. We cannot describe what they have done for us,\u201d she said. \u201cWe feel that not everyone here is unaccepting of foreigners. There is goodness, there are people who love us, people who shared their homes with us, shared our worries, shared our moments of weakness, and took us in.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"RuchiraA woman carries food containers to deliver to vulnerable migrants, following a knife attack on June 8 that left a man seriously injured and prompted police to declare it a critical incident, in Belfast, Northern Ireland, June 11, 2026 [Isabel Infantes\/Reuters]<\/p>\n

On Tuesday evening, an eerie silence took hold of the city as panicked local traders hurriedly pulled up their shutters, locking up early after threats issued on social media earlier that day.<\/p>\n

A list created by AI, shared by prominent figures such as Tommy Robinson and Elon Musk, warned \u201cAll Bunnesses\u201d shut up shop by 5.30pm. It included names of streets in the Northern Irish capital. A second list showed some 70 locations in the United Kingdom, also shared about the same time.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe whole of the United Kingdom is hitting the streets tonight at 7pm following yet another invader attack on our people,\u201d far-right agitator Robinson said.<\/p>\n

Hundreds heeded the call.<\/p>\n

Young boys, some of whom looked no older than 13, marched determinedly in the direction of east Belfast\u2019s Lower Newtownards Road.<\/p>\n

Within an hour, several loud bangs were heard as a bus and other vehicles were set alight, sending plumes of smoke into the drizzly June evening. Some perpetrators were understood to have been as young as 10.<\/p>\n

On the street, the words \u201cF*** Islam\u201d were graffitied on the shutters of a halal butcher shop.<\/p>\n

Anti-Islam sentiment appears to be a \u201cmore prominent feature\u201d in these riots, Amnesty International\u2019s Northern Ireland Director Patrick Corrigan told Al Jazeera, compared with other episodes of unrest.<\/p>\n

\"BelfastSeveral cars and homes across Belfast were set ablaze in the violence [Tommy Greene\/Al Jazeera]<\/p>\n

As video footage showed, crowds would go on to smash windows, kick down doors and attempt to intimidate or burn out residents from nearby houses where they believed migrants were living. A large group of adults watched as the young rioters kicked up mayhem, terrorising Belfast\u2019s relatively small but growing ethnic minority communities and claiming the night \u2013 and this part of town \u2013 as theirs.<\/p>\n

Only 3.4 percent of Northern Ireland\u2019s population, just more than 65,000 people, were found to be from an ethnic minority background in the 2022 census. In a country of 1.9 million, just 2,379 are seeking asylum. But as Corrigan has noted, this is the \u201cthird consecutive summer in which Northern Ireland has experienced organised racist violence, with each outbreak more serious than the last\u201d.<\/p>\n

The scenes echo coordinated attacks in England over recent years, as a familiar pattern plays out: Riots in the wake of a crime, alleged or proven, if the accused or guilty party is not white.<\/p>\n

As in the recent case of the killing<\/a> of Henry Nowak, a teenager murdered in southern England, the victim\u2019s family in Belfast has said the street disorder is \u201cnot welcome\u201d, condemning attempts to \u201cdivide people or fuel hostility\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"No\u2018No HMOs\u2019 was graffitied on a building. Houses in Multiple Occupation are often an affordable entry point for new migrants as a shared housing setup [Tommy Greene]Belfast closed down \u2018because of fear\u2019<\/p>\n

For Northern Ireland\u2019s victims of crime commissioner, Geraldine Hanna, the ability of distant and faceless digital actors to rapidly cripple the region\u2019s largest city represents a power she believes the devolved government at Stormont does not have.<\/p>\n

\u201cBasically, on the back of a GIF on social media, Belfast closes down,\u201d she said. \u201cSchools close, public transport closes, businesses close. Because of the fear.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hanna said one protest planned for Wednesday did not go ahead in the end.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut [nevertheless] some faceless online actor was able to close down Belfast.\u201d<\/p>\n

She told Al Jazeera the attacks should be treated as \u201cdomestic terrorism\u201d and questioned why the government was not addressing them as such, leaving civil society actors such as charities to plug gaps in immediate response, mutual aid and formulating counter-strategies.<\/p>\n

Other demonstrations in larger urban centres across Northern Ireland were attended by crowds dressed in black and covering their faces. Some masked men set up informal checkpoints, asking drivers passing by if any passengers were the \u201cforeigners\u201d they boasted about hunting.<\/p>\n

Stretched police officers have also come under attack. In north Belfast, bricks and masonry were thrown at officers in riot gear.<\/p>\n

About 200 families have been evacuated, according to the Participation and Practice of Rights charity.<\/p>\n

Northern Ireland\u2019s Housing Executive said it has assisted 29 households since the beginning of the \u201ccivil unrest\u201d, adding that it was still assessing damage to homes.<\/p>\n

A \u201chit list\u201d of properties believed to be Houses in Multiple Occupation, or HMOs, in south Belfast has circulated on Facebook. The addresses appear to have been scraped from public HMO data, spanning social housing and student accommodation in leafy streets. Ethnic minority community support groups believe the intent was to intimidate vulnerable people.<\/p>\n

At the political level, responses from North Belfast MP John Finucane and Northern Ireland\u2019s First Minister Michelle O\u2019Neill \u2013 both of the all-island Republican Sinn Fein party \u2013 were considered effective in calming tensions.<\/p>\n

The new Ulster Unionist Party leader, Jon Burrows, said he was \u201cthreatened\u201d by a \u201cbaying mob\u201d at Lower Newtownards Road, a site where journalists were intimidated and agitators warned people against filming them.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) politicians defended the protests over \u201clegitimate immigration concerns\u201d, while party leader Gavin Robinson went further, calling for the closure of the \u201copen and porous border\u201d with Ireland.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Belfast, Northern Ireland \u2013\u00a0When violence broke out in east Belfast near Zeinab\u2019s home, as a mother of three…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1021769,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5011],"tags":[188,299,12,1144,285,2579,112715,15894,16,15],"class_list":["post-1021768","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-northern-ireland","tag-crime","tag-europe","tag-news","tag-northern-ireland","tag-politics","tag-protests","tag-race-issues","tag-racism","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116736846232457784","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1021768","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1021768"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1021768\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1021769"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1021768"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1021768"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1021768"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}