DUBLIN (AP) – At least 10 police officers have been injured in nighttime Belfast riots after the British territory’s main Protestant brotherhood was blocked from marching past a Catholic district, an annual confrontation that usually ends in violence.
The officers, who donned helmets, shields and flame-retardant boiler suits, suffered a range of injuries from bottles, bolts and other hand-thrown projectiles as they blocked the Orange Order parade from passing Ardoyne, a power base of the outlawed Irish Republican Army.
Masked men and teenagers in the Protestant mob tried to break through police lines, a few jumping on top of police armored vehicles, but they were forced back by officers’ locked shields and blasts from mobile water cannons.
One senior officer, who wasn’t wearing a riot helmet, was struck on the head with a brick, knocked unconscious and dragged by officers away from the confrontation zone.
At a Catholic counterdemonstration in nearby Ardoyne, a motorist appeared to drive his car deliberately into the crowd, striking and injuring a 16-year-old girl who was left pinned under a wheel of the car. Catholic civilians and police surrounded the car and tipped it on its side to free the girl. Police arrested the driver.