Third Day of UK Anti-Migrant Rape Riots Sees Migrant Relocation Shelter Burnt

Unrest following the alleged attempted rape of a teenage girl entered its third night on Wednesday with continued clashes with police, and residents hanging British flags and signs on their homes to identify themselves as locals.

The Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) said they had made six arrests overnight on Wednesday, the third night of rioting in the Ulster town of Ballymena that followed an alleged sex assault of a 14-year-old girl. Three of those arrested were charged with rioting, and one of those with criminal damage as well. Some others arrested in previous nights have been released on bail.

Protests started on Monday after two teenagers appeared in court accused of the attempted rape and had to be afforded a Romanian-language interpreter, leading to claims the sex assault had been a case of an attack by migrants on a local. Clashes with police escalated into full riots, with police pelted with bricks and petrol bombs, as earlier reported.

While the overall pace of clashes with police on Wednesday night in the town of Ballymena is said to have slowed from the previous two nights, disorder has also spread to other towns. In one case, a temporary shelter established in a community leisure in Larne for migrants who had been relocated out of Ballymena was attacked.

The shelter, which was 20 miles away from the initial unrest, was set alight and suffered “extensive damage”. No injuries were reported at the scene and the migrant residents have been moved on again.

Critics have called on Northern Ireland’s communities minister Gordon Lyons to resign, because the location of those relocated migrants in Larne had been made public. Instead, it is asserted the location of migrants should be kept secret from the public so they can’t be targeted. Lyons has rejected the notion he should resign, stating the location of the temporary shelter had been public knowledge.

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As homes inhabited by migrants have been targeted, with properties burnt out and windows smashed, Ballymena residents have taken to festooning their houses with British flags and even placing “locals live here” signs on their doors to clearly identify the residents as natives of Ulster.

In other cases migrant families have adopted the British flag as a signal to others that, as The Guardian sardonically reported, “they are the good foreigners, the foreigners who cause no trouble, and deserve to be spared”. In a curious impact of the unrest, The Guardian also reports Protestant, loyalist areas of Ballymena have welcomed Catholics supporting the anti-migrant sex assault protests. A local told the paper: “They wouldn’t normally be in a loyalist area like this but they came down. It’s a very good thing.”

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