Violence Erupts After Protestant Parade in N. Ireland
Roman Catholics hurled bricks, bottles and gasoline bombs at police Saturday in protest of a pro-British Protestant parade through this mainly Catholic city.
Police said three officers were injured, none seriously. After the disturbances, soldiers were deployed on the city’s streets for the first time in six months. Police reported two arrests.
The violence erupted after several hundred members of a Protestant group marched through Londonderry’s main square, the Diamond, as part of commemorations of resistance against a besieging Catholic army in 1689.
Earlier, hundreds of extra police kept Protestants and Catholics apart, bringing Christmas shopping to a virtual standstill.
As the parade and bands left the city center, young Catholics poured into the street, hijacking two vehicles and setting fire to one of them.
After a lull lasting several hours, Catholic mobs set fire to two vehicles on the fringe of the nationalist Bogside area just before midnight.
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