Rising Fear Among Minority Communities in Belfast
As widespread violence erupted in Belfast, a list of addresses began circulating on social media. These addresses, spread across dozens of streets in the city, reportedly identified houses of multiple occupation (HMOs) where immigrants reside.
Joseph and Solomon, both Eritrean refugees who have been granted leave to remain and work full-time in Belfast, live on the same street as one of the properties on the list. Joseph believed the list targeted their home.
“It’s obviously for us,”he said.
“I don’t know how to feel,”Joseph added.
“When something is too much, you don’t feel anything.”
Until recently, Joseph, who works as an interpreter, felt safe in Belfast.
“The majority of the people out there are good,”he said. However, he is now planning to leave.
“I don’t know where, somewhere safe. I’m planning my escape.”
Solomon, employed by a manufacturing company, expressed similar concerns.
“I couldn’t go to my work for my shift; I feel it’s not safe.”He is also considering leaving Belfast.
“I don’t know where,”he said.
“I have to decide tomorrow maybe, a place with security.”
As spoke with the men, a white woman emerged from her nearby home to ensure they were not connected to the list. She said,
“Are you reporters or something?”and expressed her distress.
“I’m petrified,”she said.
“It’s really upsetting and I want to cry. I just wanted to check you weren’t giving them any bother, because they’re lovely.”
Community Response and Impact on Families
Paul Doherty, who operates a community solidarity hub in south Belfast, recounted an incident on Wednesday night. A mother arrived at the centre in distress, crying hysterically.
“I looked in the back of her car and there was three kids and they were crying in the car and she said that their house had been listed on a social media post.”
The children had seen the list and were fearful.
“She didn’t want to go home. The kids didn’t want to go home.”
Doherty noted that community members have been quietly supporting each other.
“There were people actually looking out,”he said.
“Someone had probably already been at her door when she was out, just driving around, circling.”
The circulated list has intensified a culture of fear within Belfast’s small minority ethnic communities, compounded by recent violent attacks.
Violence and Attacks on Minority Communities
On Wednesday night, a mob attempted to attack a hotel housing asylum seekers. Police blocked access to the hotel, leading to clashes with officers on a nearby residential street. The previous night, minority ethnic families were forced from their homes, with businesses looted and burned, and vehicles set on fire.
Mohammed, who fled Syria during the war in 2015, showed an injury to his shin caused by a bomb blast. His children, born in Belfast and speaking with local accents, are now affected by the unrest. He plans to leave Belfast this summer, possibly relocating to Syria or Egypt.
“We are not like this guy [the knife attack suspect],”he said.
“We are looking just only for a new life.”
The supermarket Mohammed manages, located in a predominantly loyalist area of Belfast, was set on fire on Tuesday, destroying all stock.
“At home it’s very bad. My kids are crying. We don’t sleep, actually. This morning, four o’clock in the morning, my wee boy told me: ‘I don’t want to go school. I don’t want to go to school.’ I sleep beside him. Another boy sleeps with his mum.”
The business is owned by another Syrian family. Sultan, the son of the owner, witnessed the shop burning on the news.
“We knew it was gone,”he said.
“There’s nothing more you can do. It’s wrong. It’s all happened to the innocent people. The shop’s burned. There’s a few houses burned as well.”
“It felt bad, your family business gone in front of your eyes. I just couldn’t do anything about it at the time.”Sultan added that emergency services struggled to respond due to the disorder.
“The police said they were doing their best,”he said.
“It was a terrible night that night.”
Kfloum Tekly Kassa was evacuated from the flats above the parade of shops where the supermarket was set ablaze. He fled with his wife and their two-month-old daughter to stay with friends.
Having lived in Belfast for nearly four years, Kassa works as a picker in the food industry, while his wife was employed in a restaurant before maternity leave.
“It’s very hard,”he said.
“My wife was very afraid. This is not humanity.”He expressed his own fears.
“I have children. Maybe I don’t know what’s going to happen. Hopefully, we come to a better place; hopefully, everything is good.”
Racism and Community Tensions in Northern Ireland
This week’s violence has highlighted racism in Northern Ireland. Last year, racist incidents reached their highest recorded levels, surpassing sectarian incidents.
Kashif Akram of the Belfast Islamic Centre commented on the situation.
“We were expecting something,”he said.
“We expect something every summer, unfortunately, since August 2024. Summer is a very tough time.”
He recalled an incident last year when an individual attempted to enter the centre.
“Thankfully, he was denied entry. He went around the building, smashed a window, actually two doors up from here, and threw an incendiary device.”
Akram expressed concern over the normalization of violence.
“It’s almost like it’s been allowed,”he said.
“The dehumanisation of immigrants and Muslims has been an ongoing thing, especially you can see it on social media, there have been so-called vigilante groups that have been prowling in the streets.”
“And to me, the far-right politicians have really normalised violence,”he added.
“They have legitimised the fear of immigration.”
Tim Magowan, executive director of the 174 Trust, an organisation fostering relationships between local and immigrant populations, noted the impact of recent events. The charity is located near Monday’s incident that triggered the violence.
On Tuesday, the refugee English class was suspended, and displaced individuals have been accessing the charity’s clothes bank.
While incidents such as this week’s and last year’s Ballymena riots have brought attention to the issue, Magowan said the problem had been present beneath the surface.
“Most people of colour that I know have stories,”he said.
“I think it’s really important that we’re aware of that and we’re working out what we can do to challenge that.”
“At the moment we’ve only 3% of people of colour living in our communities,”Magowan noted.
“So we’re just not anywhere near as used to being in a multi-ethnic world.
“I think that we also have a culture which is fundamentally about division. We have grown up, we are highly defended physically, most of us live in single-identity communities.
“We have been trained to have psychologically defended mindsets and we are used to constructing our identities by what we are not.”
