The Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) asserts that young people had manufactured petrol bombs with the intention to assail the police, should the opportunity arise, during a dissident republican march in Derry this Monday. It is truly sorrowful and discouraging to see youngsters, children even, participating in such chaos, remarked Derry City and Strabane’s area commander, Chief Supt Gillian Kearney. She added that it was deplorable to see youth being endangered in this manner and being spurred towards crime.
Earlier on that Monday, petrol bombs were hurled at journalists and a vehicle was ignited post the march in the city’s Central Drive. The march, organised by Derry’s 1916 Commemoration Committee to observe the Easter Rising, has been the epicentre of substantial disturbances in previous years, with the police being targets of masked youths armed with petrol bombs. It is worth mentioning that Lyra McKee, a journalist, was shot dead in 2019 during the Easter period by the dissident republicans in Derry.
During the Monday event, a dozen masked men – dressed in paramilitary fashion and adorning berets and sunglasses – marched from Central Drive to the City Cemetery among several hundred onlookers. These individuals bore the republican flags and the Tricolour. Youngsters with concealed faces were also noticed in the crowd, carrying petrol bombs and other projectiles.
The event was supervised by a police helicopter and a drone which issued a warning about the illegality of the happening. However, police Land Rovers – previously targeted – were notably absent from the site. Chief Supt Kearney informed that the police, having received a notice regarding a ceremony in the City Cemetery on the forthcoming Monday, had reached out to the event organiser. Yet, the notice did not make mention of any procession from Central Drive to the cemetery.
Despite multiple drone-issued warnings of participating in an unannounced procession on Central Drive on the day, the participants ignored the same and continued their march into the City Cemetery, she confirmed.
“Regrettably, there was evidence of incendiary device production undertaken by juveniles before the march occurred,” she stated, noting that these adolescents were also part of the procession on Central Drive. “Our evaluation is that the intent was to assault law enforcement should the chance emerge,” she stated.
A van belonging to a local resident was arbitrarily set alight near a community hall on Central Drive in Creggan, along with a series of such incendiary devices being hurled in the vicinity.
“The blaze has been handled by the NIFRS and the individuals involved in the event have now vanished,” she asserted. A police inquiry is underway.
The SDLP leader and the MP for Foyle, Colum Eastwood, expressed the view that such unruliness is neither required nor desired by the community.
“The juveniles being inflamed into catapulting petrol bombs at journalists and law enforcement are endangering not only their own lives and futures, but the safety of others as well.” He asserted that those liable only seek to devolve the situation. The citizens of Derry “aspire for a peaceful coexistence with their neighbours. We won’t permit this peace to be jeopardised by anyone, especially the cowards who send children to hurl petrol bombs,” he concluded.