US CONGRESSIONAL HEARING FOR BALLYMURPHY MASSACRE VICTIMS OF PARACHUTE REGIMENT

A UNITED STATES Congressional Hearing will be heard in Washington DC on Wednesday into the ‘Ballymurphy Massacre’ carried out by the British Army in west Belfast in 1971.

Two days after internment, 11 civilians – including a local priest and a mother of eight children – were shot dead by the British Army’s Parachute Regiment.

None of those killed had any connection to any armed group. They were all innocent civilians.

The Parachute Regiment went on a year later to shoot dead 14 civil rights marchers in Derry on ‘Bloody Sunday’.

The Ballymurphy victims’ families, who are calling for an indepndent inquiry, will be present at the Congressional Hearing.

The hearing has come about after representations by the Sinn Féin former MP for West Belfast, Gerry Adams TD, and US Congressman Richard Neal, Chairperson of the Friends of Ireland Committee.