5 February 1998 Edition
Bloody Sunday buses attacked
In three separate incidents, people returning to Belfast from the Bloody Sunday Commemoration in Derry on Sunday 1 February were attacked. Nationalists thought they had been fired on as Loyalists threw rocks at the buses.
An Ulsterbus carrying 54 people back to Beechmont was attacked as it drove through the loyalist village of Drumahoe on the outskirts of Derry. Passengers heard a sudden thud as a rock was thrown through a side window. It was only the aluminium casing of a coach seat that saved lives or serious injury. Several people were injured by flying glass and needed hospital treatment.
A Citybus carrying people back to Oldpark was also attacked. Its back window was smashed by a rock as it passed the Altnagelvin Hospital on the outskirts of Derry, not far from the mainly loyalist Irish Street estate.Luckily only one person was slightly injured.
In another act of hatred two 12-year-old girls were knocked down by a hit and run driver as they left the Poleglass bus to go to the toilets just past the Toomebridge roundabout. The two were hit by a silver car which accelerated out from behind the bus as the pair crossed the road. One girl was kept at Antrim Hospital overnight for observation.
An Ulsterbus carrying 54 people back to Beechmont was attacked as it drove through the loyalist village of Drumahoe on the outskirts of Derry. Passengers heard a sudden thud as a rock was thrown through a side window. It was only the aluminium casing of a coach seat that saved lives or serious injury. Several people were injured by flying glass and needed hospital treatment.
A Citybus carrying people back to Oldpark was also attacked. Its back window was smashed by a rock as it passed the Altnagelvin Hospital on the outskirts of Derry, not far from the mainly loyalist Irish Street estate.Luckily only one person was slightly injured.
In another act of hatred two 12-year-old girls were knocked down by a hit and run driver as they left the Poleglass bus to go to the toilets just past the Toomebridge roundabout. The two were hit by a silver car which accelerated out from behind the bus as the pair crossed the road. One girl was kept at Antrim Hospital overnight for observation.