SECTARIAN ATTACKS

Whilst the Troops Out Movement acknowledge that the quality of life for the vast majority of people living in the north of Ireland has improved, we are also fully aware that this is not so for everyone. The ongoing sectarian attacks are making life unbearable for those nationalists who are unfortunate enough to live in the 'wrong area'.

We are now hearing almost daily reports of families being forced to flee their homes following intimidation, threats and physical attacks on their homes and person. What are the police doing to put a stop to these pogroms?

Frequent attacks on Catholic churches and perhaps even more worrying, frequent attacks on Catholic schools are being reported on an almost daily basis. In recent times bomb alerts have been commonplace at Catholic schools in the north (including ominously, the Holy Cross school in north Belfast).

The Troops Out Movement call upon the British government to act to put a stop to these sectarian attacks. We call upon all unionist politicians to condemn outright these attacks and we call upon the Ulster Political Research Group to use their influence to bring these attacks to an immediate end.

 

 

Loyalist lip service as Catholic families are targeted
Irish Republican Media 25/02/04

Over the past week, a 105-year-old grandmother and a four-month-old baby were among the targets of unionist paramilitaries operating in North Belfast, as loyalists embarked on yet another series of sectarian attacks directed at Catholics and their homes.

Seven homes were damaged when a unionist mob broke windows and lobbed paint and petrol bombs at houses on Clifton Park Avenue on last Wednesday 18 February. The attacks, which have been linked to the UDA, took place over a three-hour period.

Eileen Morgan was in the living room of her Clifton Park Avenue home around 10pm when a car pulled up outside and its occupants began hurling petrol bombs.

"I was in the living room with my youngest, when I heard screeching tires and a loud crash," says Morgan, "The next thing I knew there were balls of flame at the window."

Morgan is the mother of a four-month old baby and a one-year old daughter. She has lived in the house for only four weeks. After the attack on Wednesday last, she fled her home and now says she is unsure whether she will ever return.

The homes targeted are situated directly across the street from the massive Girdwood Army Barracks — which is outfitted with state-of-the-art surveillance cameras.

Angry Clifton Park families have called for more PSNI action and are questioning how the attacks could have taken place in full view of the British base without any preventative action being taken by the British Army.

Earlier that same evening, 105-year-old Jane Crudden was sleeping in the downstairs bedroom of her Cliftondene Gardens home in the Deerpark area of North Belfast when a loyalist gang arrived and began to attack houses there.

The bed-ridden pensioner was showered with glass after four bricks suddenly smashed through her front window. Badly shaken after the incident, she had to be moved to a temporary accommodation in a local nursing home by ambulance.

"She has been left very scared by this," says Crudden's daughter Jean, one of her eleven children. "It is absolutely terrible what's happened."

A neighbour of Crudden's, whose home was also targeted, says that the attacks have left her in total shock. "If this had been petrol bombs then I dread to think what could have happened. This is a mixed area and people get on well. It's not people from this area who did this."

Another neighbour, who is disabled, was also in bed when two paint bombs were thrown through the window of his home, destroying the living room.

Local residents reported hearing three gunshots before the unionist mob headed off into the nearby Glenbryn Estate. They have no doubt the attacks are part of a continuing campaign by unionists to drive Catholics from the area.

Sinn Féin Assembly member Gerry Kelly agrees. "These incidents bear all the hallmarks of past assaults by unionist paramilitaries," says Kelly. "They mirror — almost exactly — attacks carried out by the UDA in the same area last year.

"They are clearly a very worrying development and I hope that this does not mark the commencement of another wave of sectarian attacks on Catholic homes in North Belfast by unionist groupings."

Over the past five years, there have been many sporadic attacks on homes in the Deerpark area, but in September last the sectarian violence suddenly escalated into a sustained campaign.

Glenbryn loyalists were behind a series of systematic attacks as the UDA began to focus on specific individuals and families in an effort to drive local Catholics from their homes.

One family, repeatedly targeted, was given six hours to pack their belongings and flee their Deerpark Road home. They were the third family from the neighbourhood to flee due to sectarian violence in the same week and the threat against them came only a day after yet another pipe bomb was found attached to the front gates of Holy Cross Girls Primary School on the Ardoyne Road.

Another Catholic family, who had been living in a house at the corner leading into the Glenbryn estate, endured over a dozen loyalist attacks in only eight months. Unionist thugs also mutilated the family's pet cat and left it outside their door to die. Although the family repeatedly telephoned the PSNI for help they were told officers were "too busy" to attend. Instead they suggested the family keep a rope upstairs in case the house was petrol bombed and they needed to escape the fire by climbing out a bedroom window.

Due to the violence of the continuing attacks and the PSNI's complete apathy, the family was eventually forced to abandon their home. Immediately after their departure, a further four Catholic homes on the street were targeted.

On several occasions mobs of masked men descended on the area, smashing windows and car windscreens, plastering walls with sectarian graffiti and threatening to return with petrol and pipe bombs to "finish the job."

The home of a mother and her 15-year-old autistic daughter was next on the UDA's list. In this instance too, the family's home had been attacked no less than 18 times in three months.

Their neighbours had been forced to leave the week before. And as that family loaded their belongings into a van, Catholic man Matthew Montgomery was hit in the face with a brick thrown from a passing car. His assailant shouted sectarian abuse before the vehicle disappeared.

All these incidents occurred well into the yearlong UDA "cessation of military activity".

So this week, while the UDA was busy making all the right noises about wishing "to develop relationships with the broader nationalist community based on mutual respect and equity", nationalists in interface areas were left under no illusions as to the real message being sent.

After sustained public pressure to back away from embarrassing racially-motivated attacks against visible minorities, the UDA has simply returned to doing what it has always done with impunity - targeting Catholic families.

And the PSNI, alongside its colleagues in the British Government, have returned to doing what they do to prevent sectarian attacks.

Absolutely nothing.

 

From the Pat Finucane Centre
02/03/04

The following list of sectarian and other hate-driven incidents and attacks is from 1 through 30 November 2003. The criteria we use for inclusion is based on the Commission for Racial Equality (CRE) criteria; if a person/organisation feels that the motivation for an attack against them was sectarian (or racist or homophobic), then it should be counted as such. We rely on a number of sources for our information, but this is by no means comprehensive. If you find incidents that have been left off the list please contact us.

 

1 November, Saturday. Security forces defused a pipe bomb in Carrickfergus. (UTV, PSNI)

A young couple and their three small children escaped injury after an explosion from a firework thrown through the window of their Enniskillen home. (PSNI)

3 November, Monday. Members of the Northern Ireland Gay Rights Association (NIGRA) laid a wreath at the Belfast City Hall Cenotaph to commemorate homosexuals who perished in two world wars, including in the Nazi concentration camps. Belfast councillor Nelson McCausland of the Paisleyite DUP dismissed the commemoration as "Just another of the stunts that the Gay Rights association pulls from time to time to try to make homosexual activity seem acceptable. " He also said that homosexuality was "unscriptural". (IN, CW)

4 November, Tuesday. The case of the attempted sectarian murder of a Catholic Ballymena man on October 11 came to the Belfast High Court. The court heard how the Catholic man had been visiting a Protestant friend of his in Patrick Place in the Harryville area of Ballymena. Some time after his friend went upstairs to sleep, he answered the door to a man called Aaron White, who then left and returned with two other men, including his brother Neil White. The man was quizzed about his name address and family, the answers to which questions indicated that he was a Catholic. The three men then carried out a "serious" and lengthy assault on the man, beating him repeatedly on the head with a saucepan, strangling him with an electrical cord and stabbing him in the body several times, shouting "die, fenian fucker, die". The man feigned death and when two of his attackers left to get materials with which to get rid of his body he seized the knife from Neil White. During the ensuing struggle, White was injured and called himself an ambulance. The Catholic man escaped and was later found bleeding heavily in nearby Henry Street by PSNI. Defence for Aaron White denied the attack was sectarian. The two other men are still missing ( see October 11). (UTV)

In Glengormley, north of Belfast, a family was targeted in a petrol bomb attack on their Carnvue crescent home. (UTV, PSNI)

7 November, Friday. Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir John Stevens, whose 12-year investigation into collusion has covered the murders of Pat Finucane and Adam Lambert, sent files on 10 further murders, also involving security force collusion with loyalist killers, to the Director of Public Prosecutions. (UTV, PA)

8 November, Saturday. The Andersonstown News reported that a Belfast City refuse worker hurled anti-catholic abuse at passers-by as he collected refuse in Belfast City centre. (AN)

10 November, Monday. Five Orangemen, including Mark Harbinson, a part time soldier, a footballer, Mark Wilson of the Ulster Protestant Movement for Justice and nine others, were freed by the Crown Court after pleading guilty to riotous assembly at Drumcree in Portadown in July 2002. (UTV)

Abbas Boutrab, a 25 year-old Algerian man held for six months without charge at Maghaberry prison for allegedly breaking immigration laws, charged the State with racism when PSNI arrested him on charges under the notorious Terrorism Act 2000. (UTV, PA)

11 November, Tuesday. Security forces defused a device left close to a house in north Belfast. The Red Hand Defenders (UDA cover name) told a Belfast newsroom it was targeting a spokesperson for the Parents of Holy Cross Primary School. The bomb was planted a day after the screening of the BBC Docudrama "Holy Cross". (UTV, NBN)

12 November, Wednesday. Loyalists were blamed for the arson attack on the north Belfast home of a Catholic family in which their oil tank was set on fire. A man, woman and five year old child were treated for shock and smoke inhalation. (UTV, PSNI)

13 November, Thursday. The Irish News reported that Belfast DUP councillor Ian Crozier had expressed reservations about having representatives from the German Government, Moslems or Irish Republicans at commemorations to remember the dead of two world wars in Belfast. (IN)

14 November, Friday. PSNI said they discovered an LVF-linked pipe bomb factory in Bloomfield in east Belfast. Also found were a sawn-off shotgun and a quantity of ammunition. A 23 year old man was arrested. (UTV, PSNI)

In Stoneyford, Co Antrim, security forces defused a device found in a residents garden. 40 families were evacuated from their homes. A Catholic couple who had run a pub in the area had been targeted multiple times with death threats, pipe bombs and sectarian graffiti signed "O.V." (Orange Volunteers, the paramilitary group responsible for much of the Drumcree related violence). The couple are complaining to the Police Ombudsman that the instigator, a well known Orangeman linked to the Drumcree trouble and who was arrested and then released following the police raid on Stoneyford Orange Hall, is effectively untouchable because he is a Special Branch agent. (UTV, ST)

The Irish News reported that a mixed religion couple living in the mainly Catholic Coolessan estate in Limavady, Co Derry, had been subjected to numerous anti-protestant attacks on their home and property. (IN)

15 November, Saturday. A 19 year old Catholic man from the Glen Road in West Belfast was left for dead after he was beaten unconscious by a gang of loyalists having been dropped-off by the PSNI in the loyalist Donegal Road area. (AN, CW)

Loyalists were blamed for causing a pipe bomb explosion at the home of a Catholic man in Oldpark, north Belfast. (UTV, PSNI)

Residents of an Irish Traveller caravan site at the Monagh Bypass in west Belfast have become the target of regular racial and sexual harassment by drunken members of the settled community, it has emerged. (AN, CW)

16 November, Sunday. A Catholic man suffered serious injuries, including the loss of an eye, after he was attacked by a four-man armed loyalist gang as he left the Boundary Bar in the Shore Road area of Belfast. PSNI said they were treating the attack as attempted murder. The attack was claimed by the Loyalist Action Force, a cover name for the UDA. (UTV, PSNI, NBN, IN)

A man was being questioned following an arson attack on the Pinley Green home of a couple in Markethill, Co Armagh. (UTV)

The UDA issued a death threat against SDLP party election worker Billy Leonard in Coleraine. (IN, BBC)

17 November, Monday. News that a Gay Police Officers branch is to be set up inside the PSNI was dismissed as being "politically correct" by former mayor of Belfast, Sammy Wilson. The Police Board representative from the Paisleyite DUP added "It's ironic that on the one hand they are breathing down Orangemen's necks, getting them to register as such, and yet they believe special attention should be given to the needs of gay police staff". (UTV, IN)

18 November, Tuesday. Loyalists are thought to have been behind the hoax pipe-bomb left at the Castleton Avenue home of north Belfast Community worker Eddie McLean. (UTV)

20 November, Thursday. James McMahon, a 21 year old Catholic man, was fatally wounded when he was bludgeoned with baseball bats by a masked loyalist gang at Hancock Street, close to the river Lagan in Lisburn, Co Antrim. He and two friends had been chased by the gang as they walked home after a night out in town. He died the next day from his wounds. James had just started a job at Coca-Cola. The UDA have been blamed for the murder. Many British media outlets failed to even mention the murder. (UTV, PA, IN) ( see 21 Nov)

21 November, Friday. James McMahon, 21 year old Catholic man from Lisburn attacked by masked loyalists, died from his wounds ( see 20 Nov).

22 November, Saturday. A west Belfast man wearing an Antrim GAA shirt was beaten unconscious and left for dead by a gang of loyalists after he had wandered unawares into the Ballysillan area of north Belfast. (NBN, CW)

23 November, Sunday. On the Glendermott Road in Derry's Waterside, loyalists used a breeze-block to attack a taxi from the city-side firm of Foyle Taxis. The driver said it had been the third such attack on her car. (DJ, CW)

26 November, Wednesday. In Dunmurry, Co Antrim, a gang of 50 loyalists went on a sectarian rampage, tearing down nationalist election posters and laying siege to the mainly Catholic clientele of the Motte and Bailey bar. Locals said that the PSNI had said they were "too busy" when called out to intervene. (AN, CW)

27 November, Thursday. An unnamed Catholic member of the Territorial Army (British army reserve service) was awarded £32,500 by a fair Employment Tribunal for having suffered 11 years of sectarian harassment and discrimination. (UTV, PA)

In Toomebridge gunmen fired a shotgun blast through the living room window of a 24 year old man on the McCorley Road. (PSNI)

28 November, Friday. Mrs Sylvia Hackett, widow of Dermott Hackett, the 37-years old Catholic man shot dead near Omagh by loyalists in 1987, won leave to judicially review the failure or refusal of the Secretary of State to carry out a thorough investigation into her husbands murder in the light of allegations of RUC collusion with his loyalist murderers. (UTV, PA, IN)

30 November, Sunday. The PSNI in Belfast said they were questioning a man after an incident outside a city centre nightclub in which two men received stab wounds and a third facial injuries. (PSNI)

A 17 year old youth was badly assaulted on the Crumlin Road in north Belfast by a gang of men armed with cudgels who had been travelling in a car. The boy had been walking towards a taxi rank in the mainly Catholic Ardoyne, past Flax Street, close to the interface, when his assailants jumped out of a car. His father said he believed the attack was sectarian. The police said they were keeping an "open mind". (PSNI, IN)

Sources:
AN:  Andersonstown News
BT:  Belfast Telegraph
BBC:  BBC radio and television news, BBC online, Radio Foyle
CW:  Local community workers
DJ:  Derry Journal
DN:  Derry News
G:  Guardian
IE:  Irish Examiner
IN:  Irish News
IT:  Irish Times
ITN:  Independent Television News
LI:  London Independent
LS:  Londonderry Sentinel
NBN:  North Belfast News
NL:  Newsletter
NoW:  News of the World
OB:  Observer
PA:  Press Association
PFC:  Pat Finucane Centre
RM:  RM Distribution
PSNI:  Police Service of Northern Ireland (RUC) press office.
SBP:  Sunday Business Post
SBN:  South Belfast News
ST:  Sunday Tribune
UPMJ:  Ulster Protestant Movement For Justice website
UTV:  Ulster Television

 

 

"These people" - Catholics targeted by Sandy Row unionists
An Phoblacht 06/05/04

"These people don't belong here and we have to maintain every wee bit of Ulster soil that's left," one unionist told the Belfast News Letter this week. His comments followed the distribution of anti-Catholic leaflets and a unionist picket of an apartment block in South Belfast's Sandy Row district calling for the eviction of Catholic residents.

"We want these people to leave but if it comes to it they could be ordered out at just 24 hours notice," said one of four unionists who refused to be identified. The men threatened to "do whatever it takes" to get Catholics to leave the area.

Earlier in the week, sectarian leaflets calling for Catholic residents to be driven from the area were delivered to homes in Sandy Row. The leaflets called on residents to attend an anti-Catholic meeting to be held at the local Orange Hall. The Orange Order claimed it was "unaware" of the meeting.

The Whitehall Square apartment block is close to the city centre and the affluent university area. Built several years ago, the 120 apartments were seen as adding to the increasing cosmopolitan ethos of Belfast city centre. The complex sits at the crossroads close to a well-known unionist paramilitary pub and Orange Hall.

Local unionists have branded the development as "Vatican Square", although it is believed that only a handful of Catholic residents actually live there. A Queens University student from Dublin said her father bought the apartment as an investment. The final year student said she is leaving and other residents are also leaving following an ongoing campaign of intimidation.

Late last Friday night, residents had been woken by the sound of drumming when a unionist band playing sectarian paramilitary tunes gathered outside the complex. A few hours later, the apartment block was attacked.

The reinforced glass security entrance to the complex was badly damaged after a sustained attack by men wielding baseball bats and sledgehammers failed to gain access to the building. After a week of sustained intimidation, a number of Catholic residents have now decided to leave.

Two days earlier, on Wednesday evening, an estimated 500 unionists and bandsmen targeted Whitehall Square in a lynch mob-style show of strength against Catholic residents, dubbed "republican spies".

Reminiscent of their response to the unionist blockade of Holy Cross and the siege of the Short Strand, the PSNI made no attempt to disperse the mob or confront what was clearly an incitement to hatred.

On Wednesday morning, just hours before the unionist rally, sectarian graffiti had been daubed on the apartment complex and anti-Catholic leaflets distributed. Despite the sectarian and inflammatory nature of the rally, unionist politicians appeared divided, with some supporting the action and others condemning it.

Counter-claims by unionist paramilitaries that Protestant residents of Sandy Row have been abused by Catholic residents from the apartments have been dismissed as nonsense by the PSNI. Unionist paramilitaries attempted to justify their campaign of sectarian intimidation against the children of Holy Cross and the Short Strand community by citing fabricated stories of "republican" attacks.

Despite any evidence to support these nonsensical claims, the history of anti-Catholic and racist attacks in the area and the fact that Sandy Row is a UDA stronghold, some prominent unionist politicians chose to add credence to the allegations by reiterating them.

UNIONIST REACTION

UUP councillor Bob Stoker claimed the rally was in response to attacks on "Protestants" by "republicans" in Sandy Row. The UUP councillor refused to condemn the leaflet as sectarian, while suggesting that a 500-strong rally calling for Catholic residents to be expelled was not intimidation because he "would like to see them leave voluntarily".

"If people [Catholic residents] are going to abuse the residents [of Sandy Row] they have to suffer the consequences," said Stoker. "I would like them [Catholic residents] to leave voluntarily if they are responsible for the attacks or abuse."

UUP Assembly member Michael McGimpsey reiterated his unionist colleague's support for the rally, describing it as "a non-threatening protest", while claiming that it was not anti-Catholic. McGimpsey blamed rentpaying tenants living within the apartment complex.

"Some people [Catholics] who have moved in as tenants have been behaving in an insulting way," said McGimpsey. Questioned further, the UUP Assembly member said the residents of Sandy Row had been insulted by the sight of a Tricolour "hung from a window" and had suffered "verbal abuse".

There is no evidence that either of these spurious allegations is true. Sandy Row is festooned with unionist paramilitary flags and sectarian anti-Catholic and racist graffiti, but apparently no one is "insulted" by this.

There is no record of any complaint or report of any anti-Protestant incident to the PSNI. And to suggest that such an incident gives the mob the right to target all Catholics in the area is racist in itself.

Following a further attack on the apartment block on Wednesday night, McGimpsey condemned the incident but continued to seek justification for the perpetrators. The attack had been "provoked by nationalists", said McGimpsey.

"It was only when certain elements began to taunt local residents that the problems started. The Sandy Row community was welcoming until such times as they were taunted," he claimed.

Conveniently, McGimpsey appears to have forgotten that for the last two years Catholics, as well as other residents from the Chinese and Asian community, living in the Whitehall complex and surrounding areas have been subjected to a campaign of sectarian and racist intimidation.

"Taigs Out" was daubed on the complex last year and when contractors arrived to remove the graffiti their van was attacked with baseball bats and set on fire by a gang of masked unionists.

"It is total nonsense for Bob Stoker and other unionists to claim republicans are involved in attacks on Protestants in Sandy Row," said former Belfast mayor and South Belfast Assembly member Alex Maskey.

"The majority of people in South Belfast are opposed to racist or sectarian intimidation and I think unionist politicians would be better supporting those."

STARK CONTRAST

In stark contrast to McGimpsey, UUP Assembly member Esmond Birnie dismissed the leaflets as "sectarian propaganda" and described the rally as "intimidatory".

"This was intimidatory and was designed to intimidate," said Birnie. The UUP politician condemned those involved and accused them of trying to create a "white supremacist Protestant homeland". Birnie said such a campaign was out of step with mainstream unionism.

"They seem to hate people with different skins, cultures, religions and political outlook," said Birnie. "It is they who are the real foreigners, immigrants from a time and place in which it was acceptable to look down upon those who appeared and sounded different.

"It should be seen as a sign of progress that Roman Catholics do want to live in a part of the city that was for far too long seen as the preserve of one community," said the UUP Assembly member.

A number of residents who have already been forced to flee described the apartments themselves as beautiful. "People paid a lot of money for them," said a former resident, but sectarian and racist harassment have rendered the place "a living hell". Another former resident left after swastika signs and racist graffiti calling for "Chinks to get out" appeared on walls.

 

 

Nationalists targeted in Orange rampage
Sinn Féin News 16/09/05

Amid an orgy of violence orchestrated by the Orange Order and unionist paramilitaries and spurious justifications provided by unionist politicians, attacks on the nationalist community throughout the Six Counties took on a new intensity.

Largely ignored by the media, which concentrated on the gun and bomb attacks aimed at the PSNI and British Army, a wave of sectarian attacks saw a man from Belfast's Short Strand fighting for his life after a horrific beating.

In the west of the city nationalist community workers, seeking to calm interface tensions on the Springfield Road were set upon by a 50-strong loyalist mob, while homes in the area were targeted.

Then as loyalist mobs went on the rampage on Saturday a nationalist family was dragged from their car by masked and armed men at Mount Vernon, a strong UVF area of the Shore Road in North Belfast. Fearing for their lives the family ran off as the unionist gang torched the vehicle.

In a second incident in the same area, also on Saturday, a three-year-old child was hit by a brick and suffered a fractured skull after his father's car was attacked.

Elsewhere in Belfast unionist gangs attacked nationalist homes with petrol and paint bombs.

Across the North Catholic churches were paint bombed and homes in Ahoghill, County Antrim again come under attack. In Magherafelt, County Derry up to 20 graves were desecrated at St John's Church.

Belfast

In the most serious attack, over the weekend, a man was left fighting for his life after being attacked by a gang of up to ten loyalists in the early hours of Saturday 10 September.

29-year-old John McKay was set upon as he walked home along a river path at the junction of the Albertbridge Road and Short Strand, East Belfast and sustained serious head injuries. His assailants made their escape along the loyalist Ravenhill Road.

On Wednesday 7 September, two nationalist community workers, Jim McBride and Tommy Farrell, were injured after a gang of 50 unionists confronted them on the Springfield Road as they monitored the Orange Order blockade of the road at around 5.30pm.

The men feared for their lives as they were kicked to the ground and attacked with beer bottles. Both were beaten about the head and sustained injuries to their arms, shoulders and backs.

On Saturday as rioting erupted on the West Circular Road, a 100-strong unionist mob from Sandy Row invaded the nationalist Grosvenor Road. They marched past Grosvenor Road PSNI Barracks unhindered before carrying out their attack and had to be chased back by residents.

Woman in her 70s attacked

In North Belfast a Catholic family had a lucky escape after their car was hi-jacked by unionist gunmen at a slip road on the Shore Road at around 7pm. Margaret Holland, who is in her 70s, told An Phoblacht how she was travelling with her two sons and eleven-year-old grandson Patrick, when two loyalist gunmen stopped and dragged her from the car. "We all thought we were going to be shot. They just started shouting at us 'get out, get out, we want your fucking car', it was very frightening."

Margaret, who suffers from a heart condition, said a crowd of about 30 men, all in balaclavas and scarves ran towards the car and her two sons and grandson were then dragged from the car while the PSNI stood idly by and watched their car being set on fire. "The PSNI were about 150 yards away but told us they couldn't leave their position."

The family will be making a formal complaint to the Police Ombudsman's Office.

Infant suffers fractured skull

A short time later, in the same area, a 22-month-old child suffered at fractured skull when his father's car was attacked by a unionist gang.

Robert Moore was trying to make his way onto the M2 motorway at Fortwilliam when his car was attacked. "Some people came out from over a wall and threw bricks at the car. The bricks came through the windscreen and two windows at the driver's side striking my son Caleb on the front of his head."

Moore said his son was screaming and there was blood everywhere. "All I could do was to keep driving and hope I wasn't driving into anything worse."

Caleb was taken to the Royal Belfast Hospital for Sick Children where it was discovered that he had a fractured skull.

Throughout North Belfast, on Saturday, at interface areas such as Alliance Avenue and Brookfield Mill in Ardoyne, sectarian mobs attempted to draw nationalist youths into confrontation by attacking nationalist homes and workplaces with petrol, paint and blast bombs.

In Ligoniel, also in North Belfast unionist mobs gathered at 5pm at Glenbank Road and bricked and paint bombed cars belonging to nationalists. Hand-to-hand fighting broke out after the loyalists surged up Ligoniel Road to attack nationalist homes. Houses in North Queen Street and Whitewell Road were also attacked by unionist gangs.

On Sunday 11 September homes on Serpentine Road were attacked with petrol bombs and stones by unionists from the White City area.

"Kill all taigs"

As a third night of unionist violence erupted across Belfast on Monday around 300 loyalists invaded sidestreets off the Springfield Road and attacked nationalist homes.

A number of windows were broken in the homes before residents drove the unionists back. One resident Louise O'Prey said the attackers were waving swords and machetes and shouting "Kill the Taigs".

O'Prey said she rang the PSNI at around 9pm and told them her home was under attack. "Nothing happened and I phoned again after ten minutes and this PSNI man I was talking to was really rude and told me he didn't understand why I was ringing him. I shouted back at him that there were loyalists coming up the lane and they had swords."

When the PSNI arrived she went out to tell them what had happened but they turned their riot shields on her and pushed her back into her house.

County Down

Sectarian graffiti was daubed on two Catholic churches in Banbridge in the early hours of Friday 8 September. St Patrick's Church on Dromore Street and St Teresa's Church on the town's Scarva Road were targeted. Two church halls at both sites were also daubed with sectarian slogans.

County Antrim

Nationalist homes in Ahoghill's mainly loyalist Brookfield Gardens Estate were targeted by on Sunday 11 September. At least four houses had their windows broken.

Brookfield Gardens and other areas of Ahoghill near Ballymena have seen numerous sectarian attacks against the nationalist community in recent months with one woman fleeing her home after a campaign of intimidation.

County Derry

Around 20 graves were discovered desecrated at St John's Catholic Church at Milltown, near Magherafelt on Friday 9 September. Unionist thugs attacked headstones with red and white paint and scrawled obscene, sectarian graffiti on the nearby church.

St John's was re-opened 12 months ago after it was gutted in a loyalist arson attack in 2003.

In a separate incident graffiti was sprayed at Calvary Free Presbyterian Church at Mullaghboy Hill.

Lucky escape for Rovers' manager

Meanwhile, Roddy Collins, Manager of Dublin soccer club Shamrock Rovers and his wife were caught up in serious rioting in East Belfast on Sunday night 11 September.

Collins had to drive through a frenzied mob of loyalists carrying hammers, baseball bats and iron bars as he disembarked from a ferry in his Dublin registered car after catching the ferry from Stranraer.