Despite numerous appeals by politicians, last night in the western part of the Northern Irish metropolis of Belfast, mainly young rioters attacked the police with Molotov cocktails, firecrackers and stones. The police responded with water cannons, as reported by the BBC - for the first time in six years.
The government of the British province of Northern Ireland strongly condemned the latest explosion of violence that has repeatedly rocked parts of Belfast in the last week.
Northern Ireland's Justice Minister Naomi Long blames "nationalist youth" for the outbreak of violence. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his Irish counterpart Michael Martin call for calming the situation. "The way to resolve differences is through dialogue, not violence," Johnson said on Twitter.
Corona and Brexit
The alleged reason for the latest explosion of violence is the dissatisfaction of protestant extremists with the decision of the police not to punish the politicians of the Catholic republican party Sinn Fein for not complying with the corona measures at the funeral of a former terrorist of the Irish Republican Army (IRA).
Another possible reason is the dissatisfaction of a part of the Protestant population with the status of Northern Ireland after Brexit. This is particularly true of the part of the Brexit deal that is supposed to prevent the creation of a "hard" border between the British province of Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland - as defined in the so-called Good Friday Agreement of 1998, which regulates the peace process between the warring parties.
Since the Brexit announcement, there have been fears that Britain's exit from the European Union could open old wounds in the Northern Ireland conflict.
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