‘My thoughts about the city have changed’: Belfast residents consider future after riots

Omar al-Garady, a 35-year-old from Yemen, stands outside the ruins of a supermarket in Belfast. He said he no longer felt secure in the city. Photograph: Rory Carroll/The Guardian

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.”