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22/10/2001
Two young girls caught in north Belfast bomb blast
Two young girls are recovering in hospital after being injured by blast bomb in north Belfast on Sunday.
The attack which left an eight-year-old girl with a shrapnel wound to her back and an 11-year-old girl with extensive shock was believed to have been carried out by loyalists, according to the police.
The bomb was thrown over the rooftops of a row of terraced houses at about 8.30pm on Sunday, October 21, during continuing sectarian clashes on the Limestone Road, north Belfast. It hit one girl on the chest and fell to the ground where it exploded injuring the second girl.
The attack was condemned by the Northern Ireland Secretary of State, John Reid, who described the rioters who threw the device as "quite simply, scum".
He said: “They bring disgrace on all of us in Northern Ireland. They need to be captured, prosecuted and locked up where their poisonous sectarian hatred can do no damage.”
RUC Assistant Chief Constable Alan McQuillan said it was a “dreadful attack”.
He added: “We believe at this stage that it was some form of blast device and that it was thrown from the loyalist side towards the nationalists and that the children injured were on the nationalist side. But it is early days yet.”
Speaking to BBC Radio Ulster on Monday October 22 MP for north Belfast Nigel Dodds accused the IRA of being behind the gun attack: “This sort of violence is not to be tolerated. I am urging the government to grasp the nettle - not to run away from this issue but to accept the feeling on the ground and announce the IRA ceasefire is a scam.”
Earlier, a Protestant man was wounded by a shot fired from the nationalist side of the clashes on Limestone Road. The victim, believed to be in his 20s, underwent emergency surgery at Belfast’s Royal Victoria Hospital for a chest wound. (AMcE)
The attack which left an eight-year-old girl with a shrapnel wound to her back and an 11-year-old girl with extensive shock was believed to have been carried out by loyalists, according to the police.
The bomb was thrown over the rooftops of a row of terraced houses at about 8.30pm on Sunday, October 21, during continuing sectarian clashes on the Limestone Road, north Belfast. It hit one girl on the chest and fell to the ground where it exploded injuring the second girl.
The attack was condemned by the Northern Ireland Secretary of State, John Reid, who described the rioters who threw the device as "quite simply, scum".
He said: “They bring disgrace on all of us in Northern Ireland. They need to be captured, prosecuted and locked up where their poisonous sectarian hatred can do no damage.”
RUC Assistant Chief Constable Alan McQuillan said it was a “dreadful attack”.
He added: “We believe at this stage that it was some form of blast device and that it was thrown from the loyalist side towards the nationalists and that the children injured were on the nationalist side. But it is early days yet.”
Speaking to BBC Radio Ulster on Monday October 22 MP for north Belfast Nigel Dodds accused the IRA of being behind the gun attack: “This sort of violence is not to be tolerated. I am urging the government to grasp the nettle - not to run away from this issue but to accept the feeling on the ground and announce the IRA ceasefire is a scam.”
Earlier, a Protestant man was wounded by a shot fired from the nationalist side of the clashes on Limestone Road. The victim, believed to be in his 20s, underwent emergency surgery at Belfast’s Royal Victoria Hospital for a chest wound. (AMcE)
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