19/06/2013

Young Girl Injured In Petrol Bomb Attack

A four-year-old girl has suffered minor injuries in a petrol bomb attack in east Belfast.

Sinn Féin councillor Niall Ó Donnghaile confirmed the girl had been injured and said she had been left "shaken and frightened by the experience".

It is understood children were playing in Bryson Street in the Short Strand area when the device is thought to have been thrown over a wall which separated the nationalist area from a loyalist area.

Tensions are currently high in the area after a petrol bomb was thrown from Short Strand into loyalist Cluan Place on Sunday. A 15-year-old male was subsequently arrested for arson.

Police are investigating the latest bomb attack and have appealed for calm in the area after a number of youths gathered at the interface on Monday night.

Discussing the incident, Mr Ó Donnghaile said: "There's no doubt that this could have been very, very serious.

"This happened in broad daylight in the middle of a sunny afternoon when kids are coming home from school and out playing in the street.

"It is past time that communities across this part of east Belfast were allowed to live in peace without the fear of attack or the terrible tension than can hang over our neighbourhoods.

"We must do all we can to ensure a peaceful summer for everyone in east Belfast and I would make a direct appeal to parents to help us by making sure that their children aren't caught up in negative incidents at the interface."

(JP/CD)

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