Vehicles and homes set alight as anti-immigration violence flares over Northern Ireland knife attack

LONDON —Anti-immigrant protesters in the UK have taken to the streets on Tuesday night, after a 30-year-old man believed to be from Sudan was charged with attempted murder following a knife attack in Northern Ireland that Prime Minister Keir Starmer condemned as “horrific.”Hundreds of protesters, many with their faces covered, attacked police and burned vehicles in a number of locations across Northern Ireland after a video of the knife attack, which ​left one person with serious neck and head wounds, went viral.Masked crowds gathered in various parts of Belfast on Tuesday evening, setting houses, a bus, cars and barricades on fire.Social media video verified by CNN shows homes in the Northern Ireland capital engulfed in flames as an emergency vehicle and firefighters run down the street. Tensions also boiled over in the neighboring town of Newtown Abbey, where protesters set two cars alight, and in Kilkeel where another car was set on fire.Protests have also been reported across the water in other cities in England, Wales and Scotland.Northern Ireland First Minister Michelle O’Neill said groups of masked men were “burning families out of their homes” in scenes of “outright thuggery.”The protests flared after local police said Tuesday they had charged a man with attempted murder over the knife attack, which left another man hospitalized with wounds to his eyes, back and face.The knife attack, which took place on Monday night in northern Belfast, was filmed by a witness and has since gone viral on social media. In the footage, a man can be seen pinning a visibly bloodied man to the ground and attacking him multiple times before bystanders and police officers managed to subdue him.Anti-immigrant and right-wing accounts on social media, particularly X, seized on the video, with many calling for protests.Billionaire Elon Musk was among US right-wing figures calling for demonstrations and reposting content. “Only by protesting REPEATEDLY and LOUDLY will there be any change!!” he wrote while reposting a call for nationwide rallies from Tommy Robinson, a controversial agitator who spreads anti-Muslim bigotry and has several criminal convictions.Multiple Northern Ireland and national leaders have since condemned what they said was xenophobic violence that broke out on the streets.“The attack in North Belfast was heinous and wrong. But there are dangerous attempts to exploit that to target and attack innocent people who are simply trying to live, work and raise their families here,” First Minister O’Neill posted to X.“Racism, intimidation and violence are wrong wherever they occur.”Starmer called Monday night’s knife attack “horrific” and “sickening,” adding that he had “absolutely no tolerance for abhorrent scenes of violence like this on our streets.”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.Negative online actors and some local politicians were exploiting the tragedy to incite violence and seed division, Belfast lawmaker, Claire Hanna, told BBC’s Newsnight.“What you’re seeing is a race-based pogrom. We are seeing men going door to door asking to get the foreigners out based exclusively on the colour of their skin,” said Hanna.Police acknowledged that “sporadic pockets of disorder” had broken out across Northern Ireland and that some vehicles had been set ablaze. They urged people to remain calm, protest peacefully and “act responsibly.”“We are again appealing for calm and ask all voices of influence within local communities to encourage peaceful protest and discourage any involvement in violence or disorder,” said Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) assistant chief constable Ryan Henderson.A man in his 40s was seriously injured a knife attack in the Canard Avenue on Monday around 10:30 p.m. local time, according to Henderson.A kitchen knife was recovered at the scene and the victim was taken to hospital with significant injuries to his eyes and serious injuries to his back and face, Henderson added. The victim remains in a serious condition in hospital.Police said a man believed to be from Sudan was subsequently arrested suspicion of attempted murder. The suspect flew from Paris to Dublin and entered Northern Ireland in February 2023. He claimed asylum upon arrival and was permitted to stay in the UK until 2028.Currently, there is no evidence that the knife attack was linked to terrorism, Henderson said, while stressing police are still in the early stages of their investigation.The suspect had legal right to reside in Northern Ireland, he added.The suspect remains in custody after the incident and is being charged with attempted murder, possession of an article with blade or point in a public place and threats to kill, and is due to appear in court on Wednesday.The knife attack comes at a time of heightened racial tensions in Britain, particularly centered on anti-immigration rhetoric that is being amplified by far-right figures and social media, both inside the UK and overseas.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 by a Sikh man in the English city of Southhampton –– 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.Key Trump administration officials, including Vice President JD Vance, seized on the attacker’s murder conviction to blame the UK’s migration policies, sparking tensions with Britain’s government. The man convicted of the killing, Vickrum Digwa, 23, was born in Britain.Northern Ireland has also experienced recent racial tensions.A year ago, several nights of racially motivated violent disorder broke out in the town of Ballymena in Northern Ireland after two Romanian teenage boys were accused of sexually assaulting a teenage girl. All charges against the pair were eventually dropped.Northern Ireland’s Justice Minister Naomi Long condemned the latest ongoing 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 the attack in north Belfast, hate cannot be allowed to win,” she added.