Violence Mars March in N. Ireland
LONDONDERRY, Northern Ireland — Roman Catholic rioters burned at least eight vehicles and threw gasoline bombs at police Saturday after Protestants marched through a restricted route here.
Riot police prevented a confrontation between the two groups in Northern Ireland’s second-largest city and arrested three people--two Catholics and a Protestant--but reported no serious injuries.
Earlier, some of the Protestant marchers from the Apprentice Boys fraternal group clashed with police who prevented them from parading a second time into the central square of the city.
When the marchers passed in the morning, Catholic youths shouted abuse and threw stones and bottles from a nearby street. The march commemorates the start of the 1688-89 siege of Londonderry by the forces of Britain’s King James II, a Catholic.
The trouble came just a day after the Irish Republican Army ruled out the hand-over or destruction of any of its weapons to help ease a stalemate in implementing Northern Ireland’s Good Friday peace accord, reached in April.
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