London:
Masked men burnt houses, torched vehicles and blocked roads in Belfast as a wave of anti-immigrant violence took over Northern Ireland following a brutal knife attack that shocked the United Kingdom. The protest was triggered after a video went viral showing a Sudanese man allegedly trying to behead a man on a road, as bystanders tried to rescue the victim.
The victim, a man in his 40s, was taken to the hospital with serious injuries to his eyes, face and back after he was attacked late on Monday. The 30-year-old suspect, who has not been named, was also arrested and charged with attempted murder, possession of a knife in a public place and making threats to kill.
Authorities in Northern Ireland call for calm as police arrest a man on suspicion of attempted murder after another man was stabbed in a violent knife attack in a Belfast residential area pic.twitter.com/tHmqUHAVmT
— TRT World Now (@TRTWorldNow) June 9, 2026
But the incident soon sparked widespread condemnation as hundreds of protesters, many with their faces covered, gathered at several locations across Northern Ireland. In some areas, demonstrators attacked police and set buses, cars and houses on fire as appeals for calm from authorities went unheeded.
Visuals from British media broadcasts showed police evacuating families from burning houses, with local politicians saying many of those who were targeted were Black.
🇬🇧 – Developing: Hundreds of anti-immigration protesters took to the streets of Belfast on Tuesday, June 9, after a knife attack in the north of the city left one person with serious neck and head wounds.#Belfast #NorthernIreland #BelfastProtests #UKNews #KnifeAttack #Protests pic.twitter.com/g9mLJotELm
— VIRAL VOLT (@ViralVolT1) June 10, 2026
“By 7:30 pm (6:30 GMT) they started (a) fire in the bins…we heard police cars and sirens,” one resident, Eemran, an engineer of Indian origin who has been living in Belfast for slightly over a year, told news agency AFP.
“More and more people started coming, and they started throwing petrol bombs. Suddenly, the fire started going… we had smoke inside the building… fire people came in, and they said, ‘Go down,’ he added.
Camila, a 36-year-old Chilean who moved to Belfast a month ago, said it was “scary”.
“I understand the people’s rage, but also there are ways of discussing these things more peacefully,” she said.
Authorities Call For Calm
Michelle O’Neill, the First Minister of Northern Ireland, slammed the protests and urged calm.
“Groups of masked men burning families out of their homes is nothing less than disgusting cowardice,” she said on X.
“Racism, intimidation and violence are wrong wherever they occur. There can be no excuse and no justification for these attacks tonight. No one wants to see this on our streets, and I again appeal for calm.”
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer had described the initial knife attack, which took place in north Belfast late on Monday evening, as “sickening”.
The violence, which is currently not being treated as terrorism, comes at a time of heightened tensions in Britain following the murder of a student, Henry Nowak, who was handcuffed by police as he lay dying from stab wounds after his killer, Vickrum Singh Digwa, a Sikh man, falsely alleged a racist attack.
It also follows repeated protests about immigration, with populist parties saying Britain’s asylum policy had allowed dangerous men into the country.
The Attacker Was An Immigrant
The UK’s interior ministry confirmed the attacker was a Sudanese refugee with a residence permit valid until 2028. According to Northern Ireland police chief Jon Boutcher, he had arrived in the UK in 2023 via Paris and Dublin.
He added that the suspect “was not known” to police.
The Foreign Angle
Tech billionaire Elon Musk also reposted many messages denouncing the UK government over its immigration policy. In response to a post from the anti-immigrant activist Tommy Robinson about the north Belfast incident in which he called for protests after “yet another invader attack on our people”, Musk said: “Only by protesting REPEATEDLY and LOUDLY will there be any change!!”
But later, Northern Ireland’s justice minister, Naomi Long, took a veiled dig at Muck, saying ‘bad faith actors’ who would have previously struggled to find the province on a map had sought to weaponise the understandable fear and anger sparked by the knife attack to target those who had the same skin colour.
“Do not allow your genuine concerns to be manipulated by bad faith actors,” she said. “We know in Northern Ireland the damage that can do when you demonise a whole group of people because of the behaviour of a few, and we do not want to go back there.”
Claire Hanna, the leader of the opposition Social Democratic and Labour Party in Northern Ireland, described the violence as a “race-based pogrom”. “The online ecosystem that talked this up will move on now, and the people of Belfast will be left picking up the pieces,” she told Reuters.
