Riot police with batons charged into a crowd of unruly Protestant demonstrators Monday, breaking up a daylong standoff that erupted into troubled Northern Ireland’s worst violence in more than a year.
The police chased 300 protesters into side streets and gained control of the city’s Ormeau Road, scene of the 15-hour impasse to stop demonstrators entering a minority Catholic area. There were no immediate reports of injuries in the final push, preceded by police firing plastic bullets at protesters.
The pro-British Protestants had been stopped by police from marching across a bridge into a Belfast Catholic neighborhood. When riot police were brought in, the marchers threw bottles, stones and, later, gasoline bombs at the police, who crouched under plastic riot shields and took shelter behind armored jeeps. Police then fired back with plastic bullets.
As darkness fell Monday, 300 demonstrators continued the confrontation by sitting in the road in front of police and singing “God Save the Queen.”
