Veteran's journalist Jilly Beattie tells how a city has been left devastated by a brutal attack.
There is a stench hanging over Belfast today. A smell of smoke and despair, a reek of violence and adrenaline, and what lies beneath it is nervous anticipation of Northern Ireland is used to violence, a community still evolving from the worst of days.
Over decades of The Troubles we stood witness to unconscionablethat we would all rather forget but can’t, and while peace lives now, it remains fragile and always susceptible to fracture from any direction. On Monday night a type of fracture splintered through the country when a video of an attack on 44-year-old Stephen Ogilviein a street in North Belfast, Stephen could be seen covered in blood, his legs flailing but otherwise unable to move, unable to help himself.
A figure could be seen kneeling above him. With the intervention of neighbours, Stephen’s life was saved but he has been left with serious and life-changing injuries.. He has lost his left eye and his right eye is seriously damaged and may not be salvageable.
He has serious injuries to his throat and suffered deep slash injuries to his back and neck.than all of that, Stephen, who lives with hearing loss, suffered fear so severe that it could take him a lifetime to recover and rebuild. And fear around this situation is infectious, travelling from one person to another, and through communities, at each turn trying to make sense of what is going on.and rioting not seen in Northern Ireland for years.
This time though, it was not based on orange or green but on skin colour, faith and difference.across the UK will too. Given the violence that erupted on Tuesday night, recovery will not just be a journey for Stephen Ogilvie but for the whole country.and desperate that no one else comes to any ore harm.
They saw how families perceived to be ‘not of this place’ were hounded from their homes, houses set a light, wheelies bins blasted into living rooms through front windows.on people who have made Northern Ireland their home, the properties they lived in, were caught on camera and displayed around the globe. , in unity and protection of their communities.
They saw images of women and children running in the streets, scrambling to safety, into the arms of fire fighters and police officers, into the backs of PSNI Land Rovers.. And now they have asked for privacy, time and space to try to heal and urged the public who wish to protect to ensure any protests re peaceful.
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