Murders part of widespread campaign
The triple murder of three young brothers in Ballymoney, County
Antrim in the early hours of Sunday morning 12 July, was the most
devastating attack of the many launched by sectarian gangs
against Catholics since the beginning of this latest
anti-Catholic pogrom began.
This tragedy could have been repeated many times over. At least
144 homes in predominantly Protestant housing estates have
suffered sectarian firebomb attacks. 155 other Catholic-owned
buildings have been damaged in similar attacks.
Carrickfergus, County Antrim, has suffered a large concentration
of these attacks. Fourteen Catholic families in this area have
had their homes petrol bombed in the past week and have been
forced to leave. Houses in the Glenfield and Sunnylands estates
have been petrol bombed in a carefully planned campaign. The
Catholic owners of a guesthouse on the promenade have left their
business of ten years after being attacked with petrol bombs on
two consecutive nights. Two families in Greenisland, just outside
Carrickfergus, and five families in Antrim town have also been
forced to leave their homes following petrol bomb attacks by
loyalist mobs. One family of eight was petrol bombed and then
attacked by loyalists as a furniture van arrived to remove their
belongings and in Larne, bricks have been thrown through the
windows of isolated Catholic homes.
In Whitehead, County Antrim, ten petrol bombs were thrown at
Ulidia Integrated School on the Islandmagee Road. Several windows
were smashed and damage was caused to the interior of the
building but most failed to ignite. At the start of the week
attempts were made to burn down St Nicholas's, the local Catholic
primary school.
One family narrowly escaped serious injury in the Ballycastle
estate in Coleraine when a petrol bomb was thrown into the front
living room of their house engulfing the room in flames as the
family was going to bed. As a result, the family has been forced
to leave the estate.
A pub and two businesses were firebombed in Kilkeel. A house was
severely damaged and a family escaped serious injury when a blast
bomb was thrown through the window of a house at Enniskeen in
Craigavon causing extensive damage to the kitchen.
Two men and a youth were injured when a loyalist gunman fired six
shots at them in the early hours of Saturday 11 July in the
Ligoniel area of North Belfast. In another gun attack in
Bushmills, County Antrim, loyalist gunmen opened fire on the car
of a Catholic massgoer as he left Bushmills Parish Chapel.
A Protestant family were driven out of their home by a loyalist
mob in the Protestant Eastvale estate in Dungannon. Dana Averall,
her husband and their 2-year-old son were in bed when a 16 strong
loyalist gang burst through the front door and beat Mr Averall
about the head. Dana Averall said they were targeted because she
has Catholic friends and did not donate to a door-to-door
collection in support of the Drumcree protest.
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