Reuters. Rioters attacked police and set fires in the streets of Ballymena on Wednesday (June 11) evening as violence erupted in different parts of Northern Ireland for a third successive night.
Police deployed water cannon against the crowd for the second successive night but the clashes were nothing like the previous night that left 17 officers injured and led to five arrests.
The violence flared on Monday (June 9) after two 14-year-old boys were arrested and appeared in court earlier that day, accused of a serious sexual assault on a teenage girl in the town.
The charges were read via a Romanian interpreter to the boys, whose lawyer told the court that they denied the charge, the BBC reported. Police are investigating the damaging of properties on Monday and Tuesday (June 10) in Ballymena, which has a relatively large migrant population, as racially-motivated hate crimes.
