Loyalist attacks intensify

Sinn Féin MLA Kathy Stanton and Councillor Briege Meehan with William Sheppard, whose home, and those of his neighbours, was attacked with paint bombs

Sectarian violence continues to increase across the North as the loyalist marching season approaches.

A Sinn Féin activist was targeted by pipe bombers in Ballymena, County Antrim and in Belfast a young man escaped with his life after an attempted sectarian abduction on the Stewartstown Road in Belfast.

Also in Belfast, Catholic homes in Bawnmore Park, North Belfast, had windows broken when they were hit with paint bombs and in Portadown loyalists threw missiles at a number of nationalist homes in the Tunnel area of the town.

Belfast, Lower Ormeau

On the weekend of Saturday and Sunday 15/16 May, loyalists attempted to gain access to the nationalist McClure Street for the second time in three days.

A number of masked men arrived in a number of cars and warned Catholic residents they would be burned out.

Also in South Belfast, the home of SDLP politician Carmel Hanna was attacked by loyalists who fired a number of ballbearings, breaking a bedroom window, at around 10.40pm on Friday night 14 May.

Stewartstown Road

A West Belfast man had a lucky escape on Thursday afternoon 13 May after unionist paramilitaries bundled him into a car as he walked along the Stewartstown Road.

The three-man gang pulled the man into a car and drove off along Finaghy Road North towards the Loyalist Taughmonagh Estate.

"I was fighting for my life the whole time I was being held in the back of the car," the man recalled. "I can remember one of the loyalists shouting 'shut him up'. I heard the car stopping and the central locking on the vehicle clicked so I knew the doors were opened. I made a run for it and got away. As I looked back I could see the men laughing."

The man hit out at the PSNI, who accused him of making the story up to get a claim. "They told me I was just in it to get compensation," he said. "They didn't want to know about it at all. They then told me there was no one there to handle my case so I would have to go to CID headquarters in Lisburn to get it sorted."

The man said he was disgusted at the way he was treated.

Bawnmore, North Belfast

Three nationalist homes in Bawnmore Park in Newtownabbey were attacked on Monday night 17 May with paint bombs. The assailants drove into the area from the loyalist Rathcoole estate in a dark car, believed to be a Peugeot, to carry out their attack.

The men got out and threw a number of paint bombs at the three houses, breaking the living room windows of two of the homes and drenching them in paint.

As residents of the street emerged from their homes, the loyalists sped off in the direction of Rathcoole leaving a full crate of paint bombs behind them.

Ballymena

A Sinn Féin activist was targeted by UDA bombers who left two pipe bombs at his home on the Droury Road in Ballymena on Monday 17 May.

The 32-year-old discovered the sophisticated devices, one under his car and the other at the side of his house, as he left for work around 7.10am.

A number of people were evacuated from their homes and a medical centre was unable to open while the British Army carried out controlled explosions.

The Sinn Féin member said the device was designed to activate when he drove over it.

"There was another pipe bomb at the side of the house where I would normally reverse the car around. The guys who left the pipe bombs have nothing to offer the community and this sectarian attack by the UDA will not intimidate me".

Portadown

Unionist paramilitaries have been accused of orchestrating attacks on nationalist homes in Obins Drive and Avenue in the Tunnel area of Portadown.

Gangs of loyalists congregating at a bonfire site at Edgarstown have been systematically attacking homes over the past several nights.

Sinn Féin MLA John O'Dowd said it is completely unacceptable that residents should have to endure these attacks.

"As with other sectarian attacks in the Portadown area, the PSNI seem to be completely ignoring the fact that these gangs are congregating openly around this bonfire or that these attacks are taking place," he said.