Republican News · Thursday 25 July 2002

Derry shooting

Waterside Sinn Féin Councillor Lynn Fleming has said loyalist paramilitaries are intent on increasing sectarian tensions in Derry after the sectarian shooting of a young Catholic man in Herron Way in the Waterside.

"In recent months we have witnessed a steady increase of loyalist activity in the Derry area," she said. "Threats, pipe bombings, sectarian intimidation and shootings are increasingly common and it is clear that loyalists are intent on including Derry in their Six County-wide sectarian pogrom.

"This attack was directed at a young Catholic man for no other reason than he lived in a particular area and offered an easy target for these loyalist gunmen.

"This shooting was carried out to intimidate Catholics in the Waterside. We must work together, all of us, to ensure that they do not succeed. Derry has escaped much of the sectarian violence that has plagued Belfast and other parts of the North; we must not allow sectarian bigots to alter that.

"It is important that nationalists and republicans throughout the Derry area remain vigilant and are not sucked into the sectarian agenda that loyalists are trying to pursue."