![\"Belfast](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/1781162409_986_1920.jpg\")
Belfast residents run from burning homes as violence erupts after protests \u2013 video<\/p>\nWithin minutes of the footage going online \u2013 of a Black man stabbing a white man \u2013 there was a sense of inexorability to what came next in Northern Ireland.<\/p>\n
The grievances, the social media platforms, the politicians\u2019 doublespeak and the international cheerleaders all provided a fuse. On Monday night came the spark.<\/p>\n
Those who saw the video will not easily forget it: an assailant on a north Belfast street stabbing and slashing his victim in the face and neck, shouting in Arabic. Residents intervened and halted the assault but the victim, Stephen Ogilvie, was seriously injured, including having lost an eye.<\/p>\n
On Wednesday, Hadi Alodid, 30, a Sudanese refugee, appeared in Belfast magistrates court charged with attempted murder. The judicial system was fast, but the gutted homes of minority ethnic families showed that a warped form of vigilante justice was even faster.<\/p>\n
\u201cWho was in there?\u201d a woman asked on Tuesday night, indicating a scorched, smouldering ruin on McMaster Street, off Newtownards Road, in east Belfast.<\/p>\n
A burned out car and boarded up houses on McMaster Street after the violent protests. Photograph: Andreas Becker\/EPA<\/p>\n
\u201cA Romanian gypsy family in that one,\u201d came the reply.<\/p>\n
The woman nodded, as if it made sense that a family should be expelled for a crime committed by a stranger on the other side of the city and that hundreds of youths, many with masks, should be prowling streets filled with acrid smoke and the drone of police helicopters. To the rioters who burned homes and vehicles, including a Glider bus and a police car, it did, in fact, make perfect sense.<\/p>\n
Belfast residents run from burning homes as violence erupts after protests \u2013 video<\/p>\n
Their social media feeds, elected representatives and far-right agitators, such as Elon Musk and Tommy Robinson, assured them it was all connected: immigrants and refugees were taking houses, imposing alien customs and committing crimes while the police did nothing, thus requiring community action.<\/p>\n
That worldview underpinned riots in Belfast in 2024<\/a>, a copycat to riots in England after the Southport attacks<\/a>, and impelled the ethnic cleansing of Roma from Ballymena<\/a> last year and patrols by vigilante groups who intimidate dark-skinned men.<\/p>\n Yet Northern Ireland\u2019s crime rate fell last year by 3.3% from the previous 12 months and reached its lowest level since 1998<\/a>, with especially steep falls in violence and injury. Racist hate crime and racist incidents, in contrast, reached their highest level since records began in 2004.<\/p>\n Within hours of Monday night\u2019s attack, social media platforms crackled with rage. \u201cEnough is enough!\u201d many posted. By 10am on Tuesday activists where sharing lists of assembly points and times. All businesses were to close at 5.30pm \u2013 \u201cno excuses\u201d \u2013 and from 7pm crowds were to close roads. Some posts urged peaceful action, others advised the wearing of dark clothes and a readiness to be arrested.<\/p>\n A crowd of protesters gathering in a road in Belfast the day after the stabbing. Photograph: Peter Morrison\/AP<\/p>\n At midday, leaders of five main political parties issued a joint statement condemning the stabbing attack and urging restraint. \u201cWe call for calm and for space to allow justice to take its course.\u201d<\/p>\n Other statements, however, used loaded language. Gavin Robinson, the leader of the Democratic Unionist party (DUP), called the attack \u201cmedieval\u201d. Jim Allister, the leader of the Traditional Unionist Voice party, went further. \u201cWhat is going to be done to stop this importation of an alien culture that seems to now include attempted beheading?\u201d<\/p>\n From thousands of miles away, Musk and Robinson, who was in Moscow, chimed in with exhortations for mass protests.<\/p>\n By 4pm, steel shutters were coming down<\/a> over African- and Arab-owned supermarkets, barber shops and gadget stores and their owners and staff were preparing to hunker at home. The Belfast Islamic Centre cancelled evening prayers and urged the congregation to stay indoors.<\/p>\n Crowds gathered at designated intersections from 6.30pm. Some remained peaceful and eventually dispersed. Others swelled and splintered into breakaway groups that attacked vehicles and homes<\/a> owned or occupied by people with dark skin.<\/p>\n Firefighters responded to dozens of calls in and around Belfast on Tuesday night. Photograph: PA<\/p>\n \u201cForeigners out!\u201d some chanted. Others spraypainted \u201cfuck Islam\u201d, with crosshairs, on walls. By 10pm, smoke plumed over multiple locations: Oakley Street, Crumlin Road, Lendrick Street, McMaster Street, Newtownards Road. In places there was a carnival atmosphere, with people posing for selfies and drinking beer. One man hoisted up his young son for a better view of a burning house. \u201cGet a duke at that,\u201d he said. \u201cWow,\u201d the boy replied.<\/p>\n Outside Belfast, mobs torched targets in Portadown, Dundonald and Newtownabbey. The fire service received 256 calls and attended 62 incidents.<\/p>\n