Belfast, Northern Ireland — Jack McKee, 74, pushed through crowds throwing petrol bombs and setting homes on fire to reach two women trapped inside a house on Oakley Street. The women, both African migrants still in their care workers’ uniform, were hiding in a corner as bricks smashed through the windows. Rioters were shouting, “Where are the migrants?” outside.
McKee and his daughter Paula carried the women out the back door secretly, “because they were too weak to stand” from fear, his son Jonathan told Metro. The family, who run a local church, had received a text at midnight saying the home of a congregation member was being targeted. They arrived to find the neighbouring property already ablaze, flames creeping towards the women’s home from behind, while from the front rioters hurled anything they could find through windows and doors, causing extensive damage.
“Jack McKee, 74, rescued two African care workers as far-right rioters destroyed homes and burned buses in Belfast.”
“My family helped carry them out with the fire service and laid one of the women in the back seat of my dad’s car,” Jack said. “This is life-changing for them. They can’t go home now. We are sending someone around to board up the windows, but there are calls for more riots.”
The rescue unfolded amid widespread disorder across Belfast on Tuesday night. Rioters threw petrol bombs, set homes alight, and burned buses to the ground. On Lendrick Street, Jamie Corry watched as a red car parked near his house was set alight. “I came out that door and I told them: ‘This is my property, this is my property here,’ and then they started to light the red car up,” he told the Press Association. “Once I saw the flames starting to get bigger and bigger, I moved away from my property, I moved down the street there and watched it all. The next minute the cars started to explode, the doors started smoking, the windows started melting, and the next thing the house was going to go up on fire.”
Entering his property on Wednesday morning, Corry found it “destroyed, top to bottom it’s completely destroyed.” He lost sentimental items, including some that had belonged to his late father. “I don’t know where to start,” he said. “I’m just glad my family, my kids were around at my missus’s house at the time.”
Nearby, Anselme Shima, originally from the Democratic Republic of the Congo and living in Belfast since 2013, spent the night terrified with his wife and three children. “Whenever my kids were asking me: ‘Daddy what is that noise? Where is that smoke from?’ We rushed to close the windows because of the smoke coming from the bus and then this street was on fire,” he told PA. “My kids kept asking me: ‘Daddy, what is happening?’ I didn’t know what to tell them, so I put the news on for them to see for themselves. My son was asking me: ‘Daddy, are we OK?’ and I said: ‘Let’s pray to see what God will do to us tonight.’ Now I’m asking: should I send them to school or should I keep them home?”
Shima added: “It’s just a terrifying moment, we don’t know what to do. I’m scared. Seeing this, I’m wondering if I’m next. If this happened (again) is my house the next to be attacked? I don’t know. It’s a very scary moment.”
The protests were originally organised after a man, named locally as Stephen Ogilvie, was allegedly stabbed by Sudanese asylum seeker Hadi Alodid. During his first court hearing at Belfast Magistrates’ Court, Alodid was remanded for four weeks and charged with attempting to murder Mr Ogilvie, threatening to kill an NHS radiographer and possession of a knife. In London, around 100 Tommy Robinson supporters stood in Parliament Square and ordered police to take the knee. Police and politicians have called for calm as more social media posts planning further protests circulate this morning.