SHORT STRAND, IL GIORNO DOPO UNO DEI RIOT PIU’ VIOLENTI DEGLI ULTIMI ANNI
500 people involved in city rioting (Belfast Telegraph)
Loyalist paramilitaries supposed to be on ceasefire organised major rioting in Belfast and opened fire on police, a senior officer has revealed.
Around 500 people were involved in violence at a sectarian interface in the east of the city on Monday night.
Police said shots were fired from the republican Short Strand area, while loyalists also opened fire, but masked Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) members were blamed for starting the violence by attacking homes in the Catholic enclave.
Two men on the loyalist side of the divide suffered gunshot wounds to the leg, officers confirmed.
But bullet marks on police vehicles were blamed on the UVF and are being treated as the attempted murder of officers.
Chief Superintendent Alan McCrum said: “We believe at this point that members of the east Belfast UVF were involved.
“It would be a line of investigation to establish whether that was a co-ordinated and organised ‘organisational’ position (by the UVF central leadership).
“But at this point we are satisfied that at the very least members of east Belfast UVF were involved in organising the disorder.”