"We still have a legacy of conflict, of sectarian conflict here," Queen's University Belfast professor Joanne Hughes told AFP.She was remembering the violence that tore apart largely Catholic, pro-Irish republicans and Protestant, pro-UK unionists for three decades until the Good Friday peace agreement of 1998."We still have high levels of community division. We still have segregation, particularly in the most deprived areas," said Hughes, who researches the role of education in divided societies.After a graphic video of a Belfast man being brutally stabbed, allegedly by a Sudanese man, circulated at the start of this week, riots broke out in primarily unionist, working-class neighbourhoods late Tuesday.The violence largely unfolded in "interface areas", where Protestants are still divided from Catholic neighbourhoods by fences and signage.Agitators, many masked young men, torched cars and houses, targeting some minority ethnic homes.In the aftermath, some locals and pro-Irish politicians pointed fingers at loyalist paramilitaries which still exert influence, especially over boys and young men, in predominantly Protestant areas.Loyalist paramilitariesThere was still "influence here from paramilitary organisations on the union side", said Sean Og O Murchu, a Belfast-based author and republican activist."They're sort of the hangover from the Troubles."
Belfast riots show lingering scars of decades of sectarian unrest
Days of anti-immigration violence in Belfast have shown how three decades of unrest in Northern Ireland, known as the Troubles, still shape the contours of daily life, residents and academics said.
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