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Anorak News | Photographer Niall Carson Shot In Belfast Riots While Taking These Photos

Photographer Niall Carson Shot In Belfast Riots While Taking These Photos

by | 22nd, June 2011

AFTER the break out of peace in Belfast, rioting has resumed. The violence is concentrated in the lower Newtownards Road.  This is the so-called “interface” area between theProtestant and Catholic neighbourhoods. The locals are interfacing. Fingers are pointing at the local Loyalists for starting the fighting.  On Monday, the BBC reported (Via Slugger):

Lord Mayor of Belfast Niall O Donnghaile, a Sinn Fein councillor for the area, was at the scene. He told the BBC that 60-100 masked men fully dressed in camouflage gear have been attacking homes…

“They’ve hit homes with paint bombs, pipe bombs and petrol bombs. A pipe bomb-type device has gone off. There’s a number of Short Strand residents who are injured and a number of homes have been damaged.”

The BBC adds:

The police have confirmed that two men were shot during trouble in east Belfast Shots were fired by nationalist and loyalist crowds during the disturbances in the Short Strand area.

Trouble broke out between rioters at a sectarian interface on the lower Newtownards Road and Mountpottinger Road around 2100 BST on Monday. The PSNI said some of the trouble was co-ordinated by loyalists.

UTV reports:

UTV understands a number of homes on both sides have been attacked, and that a PSNI landrover was set on fire. There are unconfirmed reports that up to five shots have been fired from the direction of St Matthew’s Church, and that one man was being treated at a nearby ambulance station for bullet wounds to his ankle in the early hours of Tuesday morning.

Meanwhile, elsewhere in the city

A bomb has been thrown at a police car in the Andersonstown Road area of west Belfast during an early morning security alert. Officers were responding to reports of a suspicious vehicle in the early hours of Tuesday morning when an explosive device was thrown at the PSNI car.
On Tuesday, the rioting continued Niall Carson, a photographer with our partners at the PA news agency has been shot. He was shot taking these photos. Reports are that Loyalists fired  two bullets at a police car.
It’s depressing news.
Photos:

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Image 7 of 7

Paint is cleaned off the windows of houses on Strand Walk after a night of serious rioting between hundreds of Catholics and Loyalists in the Short Strand area of the city.



Posted: 22nd, June 2011 | In: Reviews Comment | TrackBack | Permalink