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Police car in front of a graffiti (archive photo)
Photo: Brian Lawless / PA Wire / DPA
Violent unrest broke out in Northern Ireland on Easter Vigil.
Several police officers were attacked with fireworks and Molotov cocktails, the BBC reported.
Cars were set on fire at a roundabout in the town of Newtonabbey near Belfast on Saturday evening, with 30 to 40 people blocking traffic.
Almost 30 police officers had already been injured in clashes in Belfast and Londonderry on Friday evening.
There were also riots in some places in Northern Ireland the previous nights.
The local police called for reassurance and asked parents to make sure that young people in particular do not become violent.
According to reports, 13 and 14-year-olds were also said to have been part of the riots at the weekend.
Northern Ireland Minister Brandon Lewis condemned the violence as "totally unacceptable".
“Violence is never the answer.
There is no place for it in our society. "
Dispute over the funeral of a former terrorist
The pro-British unionists and representatives of the nationalist party Sinn Fein, which is committed to a unified Ireland, called for calm.
However, several Sinn Fein politicians criticized the unionists for having increased political tensions through their rhetoric.
In the past few days, there had been a dispute over the fact that members of Sinn Fein had attended the funeral of a former leading member of the IRA terrorist movement last year, possibly disregarding corona rules.
In addition, the special rules that have been in force for Northern Ireland since Brexit have repeatedly caused complications and disputes in the former civil war region.
The Northern Ireland Peace Agreement, better known as the Good Friday Agreement, ended three decades of violence in 1998 between Catholic-majority nationalists who fought for a united Ireland and the Protestant unionists or loyalists who demand that Northern Ireland remain part of the United Kingdom.
hej / dpa-AFX