“Criminal elements” encouraged young people to engage in disorder in west Belfast, a community meeting has heard.
A police officer was assaulted, 11 police vehicles were damaged and a man attacked with iron bars after a crowd of about 100 people gathered on the Stewartstown Road on Saturday night.
Bins were set on fire and masonry was thrown at police in scenes a community worker has described as “absolute chaos”.
Youth and community workers came together on Wednesday to condemn the ongoing anti-social behaviour in the Colin area which escalated on Saturday night and to discuss how to move forward
Jim Donnelly, from the West Belfast Partnership Board, said youth workers who had been trying to help young people during the disorder had since received threats.
Many of the people involved were teenagers, but youth workers who were on the ground said they were being encouraged by adults or watched by adults as the violence unfolded.
A number of arrests have been made and a 27-year-old man has been charged with disorderly behaviour.
“The activities they were involved in on Saturday and were being encouraged to do will have a lasting effect on them,” Donnelly told a public meeting about the disorder.
He said he wanted to see young people from the Colin area flourish, but warned that involved in disorder would “impact on them getting jobs and they could end up in prison, which we don’t want to see”.
“There’s lots of different people involved in it, there’s criminal elements, there’s elements who want to exploit them to attack the police,” he said.
Donnelly told News NI that he did not know if the disorder was politically motivated but said “what we’re sure of is that there were people there directing young people to attack the police”.