Protesters set vehicles on fire as violence flares over knife attack in Northern Ireland

By Issy Ronald, Hira Humayun, CNN

London (CNN) — Protesters across the UK have taken to the streets after a 30-year-old man was charged with attempted murder following a knife attack in Northern Ireland that UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer condemned as “horrific.”

Masked crowds gathered in various parts of Belfast on Tuesday evening, setting a bus, cars and barricades on fire. Tensions also appeared to boil over in the neighboring town of Newtown Abbey, where protesters set two cars alight, according to video geolocated by CNN, and in Kilkeel where another car was set on fire.

Smaller protests also formed in other British cities including Bangor, Glasgow and London, where a group of far-right protesters confronted police and sang anti-immigration chants.

The protests flared after local police said Tuesday they had charged a man with “attempted murder, possession of an article with blade or point in a public place and threats to kill” over the attack, which left another man hospitalized with wounds to his eyes, back and face. Authorities said earlier that they had arrested a Sudanese man in his 30s on suspicion of attempted murder.

Much of the attack, which took place on Monday night in northern Belfast, was filmed by a witness and has since gone viral on social media. In that footage, a man can be seen pinning another man, whose head is covered in blood, to the ground and attacking him before bystanders and police officers intervene.

Currently, there is no evidence of any links to terrorism, Northern Ireland’s Assistant Chief Constable Ryan Henderson said on Tuesday while stressing police are still in the early stages of their investigation. The suspect had legal right to reside in Northern Ireland, he added.

Police said the attack has prompted “strong community concerns” and called for a calm response, with Northern Ireland’s Police Chief Constable Jon Boutcher urging the public not to “let people who know nothing about Northern Ireland impact on the behaviors of our people in Northern Ireland from afar through social media.”

Police acknowledged that “sporadic pockets of disorder” had broken out across Northern Ireland and that some vehicles had been set ablaze. Henderson urged people to remain calm, protest peacefully and “act responsibly” adding that officers are on the ground.

Northern Ireland’s Justice Minister Naomi Long condemned the unrest, accusing some protesters of being “intent on wreaking destruction on the very communities they claim they are trying to protect.”

“There is no place for masked thugs to take to the streets and threaten, intimidate, disrupt and cause wanton damage – it is simply disingenuous to claim this is being carried out for the good of Northern Ireland,” she said in a statement on Tuesday night. “While I recognize and understand the concerns following on from the attack in north Belfast, hate cannot be allowed to win,” she added.

A year ago, several nights of racially motivated violent disorder broke out in the nearby town of Ballymena after two Romanian teenage boys were accused of sexually assaulting a teenage girl. All charges against the pair were eventually dropped.

The attack comes at a time when the UK’s political atmosphere is already charged. Last week, the release of bodycam footage of the death of White student Henry Nowak who was handcuffed by police in December after he had been fatally stabbed provoked a national outcry, with officers under fire for their conduct and far-right leaders accused of using the murder to stoke racist violence for political gain.

Prime Minister Starmer called Monday night’s attack “horrific” and “sickening,” adding that he had “absolutely no tolerance for abhorrent scenes of violence like this on our streets.”

“My thoughts are first and foremost with the victim, and I thank the first responders, including members of the public who intervened,” he said.

Meanwhile, Kemi Badenoch, who leads the opposition center-right Conservative Party, immediately linked this attack to illegal immigration, without providing evidence, and urged police “to bring out the facts as quickly as possible so that we can get some clarity.”

Nigel Farage, whose hard-right populist Reform Party leads most opinion polls, echoed those calls, saying “authorities must reveal the identity and status of the attacker immediately.”

CNN’s Niamh Kennedy, Caitlin Danaher, Avery Schmitz and Thomas Bordeaux contributed to this report.

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