Northern Ireland leisure centre hosting immigrants attacked on third night of violence

Masked youths in Northern Ireland on Wednesday set fire to a leisure centre that had been sheltering migrant families, but a third night of anti-immigrant violence was smaller in scale in the primary flashpoint of Ballymena.

Violence first flared on Monday after two 14-year-old boys were arrested and appeared in court, accused of a serious sexual assault on a teenage girl in the town. The charges were read via a Romanian interpreter to the boys, whose lawyer told the court that they denied the charge, the BBC reported.

In the most intense violence on Tuesday, hundreds of masked rioters attacked police and set homes and cars on fire in Ballymena, in what police condemned as “racist thuggery.”

On Wednesday, a smaller crowd in the town threw rocks, fireworks and petrol bombs at police, who responded with water cannon.

Read more: Reuters