Tension rises in Portadown as Drumcree looms
``In the last six weeks, since the loyalists began gathering stuff for their bonfire, there have been 110 sectarian incidents along the `peace line' at Corcrain Road,'' says Breandán MacCionnaith of the Garvaghy Road Residents' Coalition.
MacCionnaith was speaking to An Phoblacht just hours after the latest attack at the `peace line' when a blast bomb exploded, on Monday 25 June, in the back yard of a house evacuated just two weeks ago by the young woman who lived there. Four petrol bombs were also lobbed over the fence just minutes before the blast bomb was thrown and it is believed these may have been used to lure residents out into the open before the blast bomb attack was launched.
The woman, whose house on Obins Drive was the nearest to the `peace line', had had enough of the constant nightly attacks on her home, so she moved. Her neighbour, an elderly man, is also about to move out.
The `peace line' at Corcrain Road and Obins Drive is a 40ft high metal structure, an eyesore that doesn't even do its job of protecting vulnerable Catholic families from Corcrain Road loyalists. There is a gap between the `peace line' and the wall at Corcrain that allows the loyalist attackers to attack the wire mesh fence at the bottom of the `peace line'. ``Their aim'', says newly elected Sinn Féin councillor Brian McGeown, ``is to weaken the wire and force their way through''. To that end, the loyalists have been dropping tyres down into the gap and setting them alight and the Sinn Féin man thinks it is only a matter of time before the fence is breached.
As it took the RUC about 40 minutes to arrive at the scene of Monday night's bomb attack, the residents of the area don't hold out any hope of any help from them to protect their homes or indeed their lives.
On two other occasions over the weekend, loyalists forced their way into the Obins Street area through Curran Street and attacked nationalist homes.
Nationalists have been urged to be, ``extra vigilant'' in the days leading up to the annual Orange march at Drumcree.
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