Anti immigration protesters torched marked migrant homes, set fire to a Glider bus on the Newtownards Road and burned vehicles across east Belfast on Tuesday night, with the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) appealing for calm as the city descended into a second night of unrest following Monday's attempted beheading on Kinnaird Avenue.
A Sudanese national in his thirties has been charged with attempted murder over Monday night's attack. He hasn't been named.
What happened on Tuesday night
PSNI said sporadic pockets of disorder broke out across the city on Tuesday evening, with officers responding to incidents as they arise.
Confirmed across mainstream UK and Irish coverage, including RTÉ News and France 24:
- A Glider bus on the Newtownards Road in east Belfast was set on fire after masked males pushed flaming commercial bins into it
- Vehicles set ablaze on Lendrick Street
- Multiple central roads blocked
- Sporadic disorder in several other locations
Video footage circulating on social media has shown protesters moving through residential streets, identifying homes occupied by migrants, and torching those homes and the vehicles parked outside them.
PSNI has asked the public not to share footage from Monday night's Kinnaird Avenue attack and not to speculate on social media.
Video: composite videos on X.
The Ballymena parallel, almost to the day
Tuesday night's disorder is happening on the anniversary, almost to the day, of the start of the 2025 Ballymena riots.
The Ballymena riots began on 9 June 2025 after two Romanian speaking 14 year old boys were arrested over the alleged sexual assault of a teenage girl. The charges against them were later dropped, with prosecutors citing a lack of evidence, but by then the violence had already spread across Northern Ireland.
The pattern in 2025 was specific:
- Anti immigration mobs went door to door identifying which homes were occupied by migrants
- Ethnic minority residents were filmed packing suitcases and leaving their homes
- Locals put "locals live here" signs in their windows to deter rioters
- Homes were attacked with bricks, paint bombs and petrol bombs
- The unrest spread to Belfast, Carrickfergus, Newtownabbey, Larne, Portadown, Coleraine, Antrim and Lisburn
Across the 2025 unrest, 107 police officers were injured, 56 people were arrested, and 27 were remanded into custody. The 2025 violence resulted in the exodus of two thirds of Ballymena's Roma population from the town.
Northern Ireland Assistant Chief Constable Ryan Henderson said at the time: "This violence was clearly racially motivated and targeted at our minority ethnic community and police."
What set Tuesday night off
The trigger is Monday night's attack on Kinnaird Avenue in north Belfast.
A man in his forties, described by initial witnesses as Northern Irish, was attacked while walking on the street shortly after 10:30pm on Monday 8 June. He's in hospital with serious slash wounds to his eye, face, neck and back.
Bystanders charged in to subdue the attacker before police arrived. One bystander was armed with a hurl, a hurling stick. The Belfast Telegraph reported police recovered a small Stanley type knife at the scene.
PSNI initially identified the suspect as Somali, then corrected the statement to confirm he's a Sudanese national. He's a man in his thirties.
PSNI Chief Constable Jon Boutcher confirmed the suspect's immigration history. He arrived in Northern Ireland from Dublin in February 2023, having flown to Paris from Sudan. He claimed asylum and was granted leave to remain in September 2023.
Chief Const Boutcher said: "There is no trace of this suspect on any of our national security databases, and he was not known to the Police Service of Northern Ireland."
The suspect's been charged with attempted murder.
You can read One News Australia's full coverage of the Kinnaird Avenue attack here.
The political response
Prime Minister Keir Starmer called the attack "horrific" and "sickening", saying on X: "I have absolutely no tolerance for abhorrent scenes of violence like this on our streets. My thoughts are first and foremost with the victim, and I thank the first responders, including members of the public who intervened."
Northern Ireland First Minister Michelle O'Neill held a Stormont press conference calling for calm.
Gavin Robinson MP (DUP, East Belfast) said the suspect was in the UK on a five year visa:
"Having abused the privilege of our nation, the perpetrator living in the UK under a five year visa needs to be convicted and deported on the first flight out on a one way ticket."
Northern Ireland Secretary Hilary Benn, pressed by Robinson in the Commons on how the man entered Northern Ireland, refused to disclose the route but said: "Any foreign national who abuses the hospitality of this country to commit crimes should be in no doubt of our determination to deport them."
The wider UK context
Tuesday night's Belfast disorder follows a week of far right protests in southern England over the police response to the December 2025 fatal stabbing of teenager Henry Nowak by a British Sikh man.
X owner Elon Musk has commented on the Belfast attack on social media.
CBS News, reporting on Tuesday's events, noted residents in some Northern Ireland towns last year displayed "locals live here" signs in their windows to deter rioters going door to door. Whether the same pattern repeats this week will become clearer as the unrest develops.
What happens next
PSNI is on the ground in east Belfast responding to incidents as they arise. Arrest numbers and damage assessments from Tuesday night aren't yet available.
The Sudanese national in police custody is due before Belfast Magistrates' Court on the attempted murder charge.
The investigation into the Kinnaird Avenue attack is ongoing.
