Disturbing racial incidents in Belfast

A Sudanese father and his five-year-old daughter have been forced to flee their home in east Belfast after suffering racist intimidation.

The occupants of another house nearby have also had to leave after burglars ransacked the property and tore up the Koran.

Adam Taha moved his family to a new temporary apartment in west Belfast after he woke to find his car’s tyres were slashed outside his home on Newcastle Street.

It came just days after he was attacked by loyalists after he confronted two men smashing up a house on nearby Island Street where Sudanese friends live.

The gang had trashed the property, including using knives to cut up beds and scrawling racist graffiti on the walls, and also stole a number of items.

Mr Taha managed to get pictures of the gang as they fled. But the pair returned with metal bars and attacked the Sudanese men in an attempt to get their phones and the pictures they had taken.

His friend was hit on the head, legs and body, and was taken to hospital by ambulance for treatment. Both have now moved to temporary hostel accommodation.

Mr Taha said he has lived in the area for two years without any any problems, but is now considering leaving the Six Counties.

“I feel insecure. Everything I have to check, if somebody is following me - I don’t feel safe,” he said.

“I’m going to move somewhere else. There is no point in staying here if there is no justice. If this continues on there is no future here.”

PIGS’ HEADS

Meanwhile, pigs’ heads with racist slogans painted on them were dumped at St Luke’s Church on Northumberland Street, near the loyalist Shankill Road in west Belfast.

The Protestant church is for sale and has been at the centre of rumours that it was being bought by members of the Belfast Islamic community for a new mosque.

The rumours have been denied.

The pigs’ heads, which are deeply offensive to Muslims, were found at the door of the building on October 24.

Sinn Fein’s Fra McCann said: “All places of worship should be treated with respect. The fact that anti-Islamic slogans were written on the pigs’ heads makes this all the more sinister and disgusting”.

Urgent Appeal