Omar al-Garady stood on the pavement gazing at the ruins of the supermarket where his family used to buy halal chicken and rice. The windows were smashed and the walls were charred, casting an acrid aroma over Donegall Road in south Belfast.
“It had everything,” he said, looking at an interior jumbled with debris and mounds of blackened packets. “The owner was from Syria.”
As he spoke a car slowed down and a young man stuck his head out the window. He was smiling. “Bye bye shop!” he yelled. “Bye bye!”
Al-Garady did not flinch. Since the riots in England spread to Northern Ireland, the 35-year-old from war-torn Yemen has adjusted to a new reality. “All my thoughts about the Irish and this city have changed,” he said. “I don’t feel secure. We’ve been advised to keep our children inside. I hope in my heart everything will be all right.”
The mob that rampaged through this patch of Belfast last Saturday, and again on Monday, involved a few hundred people, a tiny minority of residents. But some of the immigrants and refugees who were targeted are fearful that the hostility goes wide and deep.
Mohammed Idris, 50, a refugee from Sudan, fled when a crowd attacked his cafe. “They were shouting: ‘Where is Mohammed?’” he said. “They burnt it completely.” It was not his first time standing in the ashes of his livelihood. Last August, long before the Southport killings prompted disturbances across England, a mob burned Idris’s computer shop.
He is grateful for expressions of solidarity and crowdfunding initiatives to help him and other businessowners rebuild but said he plans to move to another part of Belfast: “If I stay it will happen again.”
While hotspots for unrest have cooled somewhat in England in recent days Belfast has kept simmering, with six arrests during a spate of incidents on Tuesday night. Masked men drove a stolen car into an estate agents after claims it was renting homes to asylum seekers.
Elsewhere masked men smashed doorways and windows of homes and youths pelted eggs at a supermarket, which left a 15-year-old requiring treatment for facial injuries. The supermarket had been previously attacked in January and February. Ten nurses from overseas plan to leave Northern Ireland, the BBC reported.
Police believe that paramilitary groups are contributing to the violence. It does not help that the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) is overstretched; the force is supposed to have 7,500 officers but has just 6,300. Another factor is synergy with far-right activists in Ireland who have targeted asylum accommodation and staged violent protests there, including a riot in Dublin last November. Several attended a rally in Belfast last Saturday and waved Irish tricolours alongside loyalists with British flags.
Migrants and refugees in the loyalist Donegall Road and Sandy Row area said most residents were welcoming, or at least not overtly hostile, but that a well of resentment, racism and misinformation could perpetuate intimidation and violence.
A cluster of bystanders near Idris’s charred cafe appeared to condemned the arsonists. “Why are they doing this? There’s no call for it,” said Rob, 45, a maintenance worker. “We’re all just here for a short time and should live in peace. What’s happening is totally crazy.”
There were murmurs of agreement. Adam, 31, said the violence was “inappropriate” but echoed unionist politicians who have spoken of “legitimate concerns” over immigration. He then accused newcomers of jumping queues for housing and social welfare and imperilling Northern Ireland’s way of life. “Our health waiting lists and income supports are being affected and I worry they will spread jihad. No one wants dark ages values imposed on modern society.”
Adam’s partner said some immigrants were welcome. “I respect the Asians, they work hard and respect us. But if you’re here just taking things for free, well, what do you expect?” That people had targeted businesses that created jobs left her unmoved.
A man in his 20s joined the group to announce that the previous night about 30 Muslims with bricks and bottles had triggered the latest disturbances, but that the media had covered this up. Nods greeted the fictitious claim. “We’re a community under rage,” he said.
A short distance away Robert, 80, sat outside a pub nursing a pint of Tennent’s and a list of grievances. Muslim kids swamped his old school, rendering it unrecognisable, he said. “You’re tripping over them.”
He hoped loyalists and nationalists would make common cause against newcomers. “Both sides want them out. They should have done it years ago. The flags together, that was good, enough of this carry-on – the housing and benefits and money for nothing.”
Robert seethed at the police for “protecting” migrants and accused Muslims of rudeness. “They never say hello.” Two minutes later a woman in a hijab, walking with a man and young boy, passed on the pavement. She caught Robert’s eye, beamed and said “hello” before continuing on her way. Robert shook his head, unimpressed. “That’s the first time that’s happened to me.”
Hair salons and shops that have thus far escaped the violence around Donegall Road have remained open but employees are bracing. There are rumours of fresh disorder this week. “I don’t know what’s going to happen,” said Adam Ahmed, 34, a refugee from Sudan who was working behind a counter. “Maybe they’ll burn this place. But I’ll stay. Where else would I go?”
