AP News53%
Police blast water cannons at Belfast protesters as unrest flares again after stabbing 26%
By PETER MORRISON0% JILL LAWLESS0%
6/10/2026, 1:16:20 AM
Topics: Northern Ireland, Belfast, Stabbing, Violence, Protests, Immigration, Hadi Alodid, Stephen Ogilvie, Water Cannons, Arrests, Court Appearance, Attempted Murder, Knife Attack, Anti Immigrant Sentiment, Paramilitary Groups, The Troubles, Peace Process, British Politics, Irish Politics, Keir Starmer, Michelle Oneill, Naomi Long, Jon Boutcher, Emma Little Pengelly, Jd Vance, Henry Nowak
BS Summary: This article contains 24 faulty reasoning types, including Quote-first Misdirection, Fundamental Attribution Error, and Biased Writer Voice, with Negativity Bias as the most egregious example at 28.3% saturation with 196 hits. Analysis detected 993 faulty-reasoning hits from 692 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 37.6% and a BS Rank of 26% (16,362 of 21,887 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 74.80% of the article peer group.
BELFAST, Northern Ireland (AP) — Police blasted water cannons Wednesday at protesters in Northern Ireland who set small fires and hurled bricks, rocks and bottles at them during a second night of violence over a brutal stabbing on a Belfast street.
Demonstrators wearing masks tore bricks from the walls outside homes and smashed sidewalks with sledgehammers to toss at riot police.
In one place, the unruly crowd used sections of a dismantled a picket fence to take cover on the street.
The clashes with police came several hours after a 30-year-old man from Sudan appeared in a Belfast court charged with attempted murder in a stabbing attack that left a man seriously injured and triggered anti-immigrant violence.
Hadi Alodid, 30, was ordered held in jail after appearing by video in Belfast Magistrates’ Court, where a detective said he blinded Stephen Ogilvie in the left eye during the knife attack.
He was also charged with possessing a knife and threatening to kill a radiographer while being treated for a hand injury after the assault.
Firefighters rescued several people from burning houses and more than two dozen people were left homeless.
Anselme Shima, a Belfast resident originally from Congo, said he saw smoke from burning vehicles near his home.
“I’ve lived on my street for almost 10 years, I have a good relationship with my neighbors, but last night was a horrific one,” he said.
“We don’t know what to do.
I’m scared.
Seeing this, I’m wondering if I’m next.”
Families, one with a baby, were rescued and taken to police stations for safety, Police Service of Northern Ireland Chief Constable Jon Boutcher said.
“These weren’t just families from ethnic minority communities, these were families from across communities that were caught up in this vile behavior last night,” Boutcher told the BBC.
“There is absolutely no excuse for it.”
Boutcher said 200 more officers would be on the streets Wednesday and the PSNI was calling in support from other forces.
Bus and train operators in Belfast said they would stop services early because of expected protests.
Ogilvie’s family appealed for an end to the violence and said migrants “make a deeply valuable contribution to our country.”
“We do not want this terrible tragedy to be used to divide people or fuel hostility,” the family said in a statement.
Politicians from both parts of Northern Ireland’s power-sharing government condemned the violence.
First Minister Michelle O’Neill of Irish nationalist party Sinn Fein said it was “thuggery.”
“Groups of masked men burning families out of their homes is nothing less than disgusting cowardice,” she said.
Deputy First Minister Emma Little-Pengelly, of the pro-British Democratic Unionist Party, said that “taking frustration at the evil actions of a person out on those who had no part in it is utterly wrong.”
Some politicians said the stabbing should spark a review of the open border between Northern Ireland, which is part of the U.K., and the Republic of Ireland.
The border is a highly sensitive issue.
Allowing the free flow of people is a major pillar of the peace process that largely ended decades of violence known as “The Troubles.”
The conflict involving Irish Republican and British Loyalist militants and U.K. security forces left almost 3,600 people dead before a 1998 peace accord.
Much of Tuesday’s violence took place in working-class areas where former paramilitary groups still hold considerable sway over the streets.
Last week a separate case of a university student who was stabbed to death in Southampton, England, in December was seized on by activists and U.S.
Vice President JD Vance, who blamed immigration for the violence, an idea rejected by Starmer and other British politicians.
Henry Nowak, who was white, was killed by Vickrum Digwa, a Sikh who falsely claimed to police that he was the victim of a racist assault by Nowak.
When police officers arrived, they initially treated the wounded Nowak as a suspect before noticing his injury and trying to resuscitate him.
Digwa was convicted of murder and sentenced last week to life in prison with a minimum 21-year term.
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10speakers55%attributed speech308writer words
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100%flagged-word coverageEmma Little-Pengelly
34 attributed words8.9% of attributed speech88% writer coverage
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