Violence on Lanark Way in West Belfast on 7 April. Photograph: Peter Morrison/AP
Violence on Lanark Way in West Belfast on 7 April. Photograph: Peter Morrison/AP
Thu 15 Apr 2021 05.00 EDT
Last modified on Thu 15 Apr 2021 10.26 EDT
A few of the boys and men asked about their alleged involvement in last week’s street violence in Northern Ireland spoke as if struggling to remember troubled dreams. A person was holding a plastic off-licence bag. They had already had a lot of drinks and this looked like more, but then the bag contained petrol bombs. Someone for reasons unknown to himself made the journey from mid Ulster to Belfast. He found himself in the middle of a riot. Another was passing the end of a street and saw boys attacking the police. A child he knew was disappearing down an alley. He followed but then he was at other riots in other parts of the city.