Republican News · Thursday 12 September 2002

Loyalists attack homes

Loyalists attacked homes belonging to both Catholics and Protestants in North Belfast on Saturday night 7 September and again in the early hours of Sunday 8 September.

Up to ten men armed with wooden poles, bricks and concrete blocks smashed windows of two houses at the junction of Jellicoe Avenue and Skegoniel Avenue at around 11.40pm on Saturday. They returned at 4.30am on Sunday morning and broke windows and attacked cars at the junction of Ashfield Gardens and Skegoniel Avenue.

One resident said that he saw up to ten loyalists going into gardens and breaking windows and that they returned in the early hours and broke two windows in his own home. "I have lived here for eight years and if these loyalist thugs think I'm moving they are wrong," he said. "Other people have moved out because of loyalist petrol and paint bombing their homes."

He said this was not the first time loyalists have attacked his home: "In July my car and home was petrol and paint bombed. Someone is organising these sectarian attacks; two weeks ago the bonnet of my new car was damaged."

Sinn Féin councillor Gerard Brophy said that everybody knows the UDA are behind these attacks. "These are unprovoked and orchestrated attacks. So much for the UDA's no first strike policy."

He added that every unionist and loyalist politicians should be doing more to put a stop to "these sectarian attacks on people who just want to get on with their lives".