Protests against immigration have spread across Northern Ireland for a second night after a Sudanese asylum seeker appeared in court charged with the attempted murder of a man partially blinded in a Belfast knife attack.
Hadi Alodid, 30, was remanded in custody on June 10 after a video-link hearing was told that the victim, Stephen Ogilvie, had lost his left eye and suffered serious wounds to his face and back.
The attack took place on the night of June 8 in north Belfast, when Alodid set upon Ogilvie, a man in his forties, with a kitchen knife. Members of the public confronted the attacker before police arrived, with one man tackling him using a hurley.
Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) Chief Constable Jon Boutcher said the suspect had travelled from Sudan to Paris, flown on to Dublin and then crossed into Northern Ireland by bus in February 2023. He claimed asylum and was granted leave to remain.
Boutcher said the attack was not being treated as terror-related, though counter-terrorism officers were assisting the inquiry.
Anger over the stabbing spilled onto the streets on June 9, when masked crowds set fire to homes believed to house immigrants, torched a bus and cars and pelted police with bricks and petrol bombs. More than two dozen people were left homeless.
Firefighters rescued several families, among them a baby of two months, Boutcher said. Two police officers were injured.
The disorder resumed on June 10, when demonstrators gathered near the Sandyknowes roundabout in Newtownabbey, north of Belfast, and tried to march on a hotel previously used to house migrants.
Police fired water cannon to disperse the crowds after officers were attacked with bricks and petrol bombs. Further trouble was reported in Derry.
Stormont’s leaders condemned both the attack and the violence that followed. Deputy First Minister Emma Little-Pengelly said the suspect should be deported the moment any conviction was secured.
First Minister Michelle O’Neill said those responsible for the attack must face the full force of the law, while criticising figures she accused of stoking tensions online.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer described the stabbing as “abhorrent” and praised the members of the public who had intervened.
Ogilvie’s family said they were shocked by the attack but did not want it used to justify violence, adding that the “overnight unrest is not welcome”.
The trouble has echoed the riots that gripped Ballymena, northwest of Belfast, a year ago, after two Romanian teenagers were charged over an alleged sexual assault. Those charges were later dropped.
