Effigies of refugees set alight on bonfire condemned in Northern Ireland

MOYGASHEL, Northern Ireland — A model of refugees in a boat, placed on a bonfire in a pro-British town near Belfast, was set alight on Thursday (July 10) night, weeks after migrants’ homes were attacked nearby.

The display prompted condemnations by politicians across Northern Ireland’s political divides, and police said they were investigating it as a hate incident.

Bonfires are lit across the British region in mainly Protestant “loyalist” neighbourhoods on the eve of the July 12 commemorations of William of Orange’s victory over the Roman Catholic King James at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690.

Effigies of eight immigrants in life jackets were placed in a model boat alongside an Irish flag on top of the bonfire in the town of Moygashel, 65 km west of Belfast. Banners below the boat read “Stop the Boats” and “Veterans before Refugees”.

A large crowd gathered, many filming on their phones, as the more than 50-wooden-pallet-tall bonfire was set alight at nightfall on Thursday. A pipe band played music and fireworks were lit beforehand.

A member of the regional assembly for Irish nationalists Sinn Fein, Colm Gildernew, called the display “deplorable” and a “clear incitement to hatred”.

Ulster Unionist Party leader Mike Nesbitt had joined Gildernew and others in calling for the effigies to be removed before the bonfire was lit and said he condemned them “without reservation”.

“This image is sickening, deplorable and entirely out of step with what is supposed to be a cultural celebration,” Nesbitt, who is the region’s health minister, wrote on X.

Bonfires and parades to mark July 12 have often prompted violence, even after a 1998 peace deal largely ended three decades of sectarian conflict in Northern Ireland.

In June, masked rioters attacked police and set homes and cars on fire in Ballymena, 65 km northeast of Moygashel.

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