Michael Sancio, a resident of the Northern Irish town of Ballymena, said he was woken at midnight on Tuesday by masked men banging loudly on windows.
Sancio, his wife, and daughter, along with a couple who share their house – all originally from the Philippines – grabbed their passports and a few belongings and fled their home, sleeping at a friend’s house on Tuesday night. They said they plan to stay further outside the town on Wednesday because they feel unsafe at home.
Hundreds of masked rioters attacked police and set homes and cars on fire in the town of 30,000 people for a second successive night on Tuesday. Police are investigating the damaging of property as racially motivated “hate crimes”.
“Last night, I woke up at 12 midnight because I heard some people outside. I saw in the window other guys wearing a black jacket and black pants, and … a mask,” Sancio, 27, said on Wednesday.
“They started banging the window of our neighbours. I panicked because I have a daughter inside that house.”
The rioters smashed the windows of the couple’s car that was parked outside the house and set it and a bin on fire, said Sancio, who works at a local bus manufacturer.
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A third night of unrest
Public disorder broke out in Northern Ireland for the third successive night on Wednesday, with videos and pictures on social media purportedly showing a fire in a leisure centre in the town of Larne after masked youths smashed the building’s windows.
Reuters could not immediately verify the authenticity of the clips.
The violence erupted after two 14-year-old boys were arrested and appeared in court. The teenagers are accused of a serious sexual assault on a teenage girl in Ballymena, a town with a relatively large migrant population located 45km (28 miles) from Belfast.
BBC reported that the charges were read to the boys via a Romanian interpreter, adding that the lawyer told the court they denied the charges.
Anti-migrant violence is rare in Northern Ireland, which for decades has been more familiar with sectarian violence between resident Catholics and Protestants, including in Ballymena.
While a 1998 peace deal largely ended the three decades of bloodshed between Protestants who wanted to remain under British rule and Catholics favouring a united Ireland, there are still sporadic clashes.
Anti-migrant sentiment
Sancio said the masked men told them that they were not targeting Filipino people.
Around Ballymena, Filipino residents put stickers of British and Filipino flags on their doors, accompanied by messages saying “Filipino lives here” to show they were not Romanian.
Union flags regularly fly in the largely pro-British town. Democratic Unionist Party councillor Lawrie Philpott said that some people who usually do not fly flags had hung Union flags outside their homes this week to show they are local.
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Around 6 per cent of people in Northern Ireland were born abroad, according to government statistics. The foreign-born population in Ballymena is higher, in line with the UK average of 16 per cent, and includes a relatively large Filipino community.
Northern Ireland has been broadly welcoming to migrants, but that has been tested recently. Violent disorder erupted in Belfast last August as part of anti-immigration protests that swept across several UK cities following the murder of three young girls in northwest England.
In the Republic of Ireland, rioting broke out in Dublin in late 2023 during anti-immigrant protests that were triggered by a stabbing attack that left a child seriously injured.
Filipino families
Sian Mulholland, a local lawmaker from the Alliance Party, said she was fielding calls from migrant families who, in some cases, had barricaded themselves into their homes until 2.30am on Wednesday morning.
“I had been engaging with this community beforehand because the houses they are living in are not fit for purpose. They’re [living in] squalor,” Mulholland said.
Sancio’s wife, Mariel Lei Odi, was working a night shift on Tuesday. When she returned home, she was worried about the safety of their two-year-old daughter, she said.
“When I [came home to] my husband and chatted about what happened last night, I said, ‘My daughter, my daughter, my daughter. What happened?’” she said.
Michael Asuro, who lives in the house with his wife, Jessa Sagarit, said he came to Northern Ireland just under two years ago to seek a better life. Sagarit said she felt traumatised by the events.
As residents boarded up broken windows and doors in Ballymena, the Filipino families wondered about their future and whether they would stay. “We feel extreme fear,” Asuro said.
