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Filipinos flee Northern Irish home after night of 'racist thuggery'

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Reuters Wires

<div><iframe width="640" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/o93J11140O0?&amp;wmode=opaque&amp;rel=0" frameBorder="0" allowfullscreen="" class="fr-draggable"></iframe> </div>Philippine native Michael Sancio was awoken at midnight in fear in his home in the Northern Irish town of Ballymena when masked men began banging loudly on windows at the epicentre of two nights of rioting police have condemned as &quot;racist thuggery.&quot;Sancio, his wife and daughter share the home with another Filipino couple and all five fled with just items like passports to sleep elsewhere on Tuesday night. They plan to stay further outside the town on Wednesday because they feel unsafe at home.Hundreds of masked rioters attacked police and set homes and cars on fire in the town of 30,000 people for a second successive night on Tuesday. Police are investigating the damaging of property as racially-motivated &quot;hate crimes&quot;.&quot;Last night I woke up at 12 midnight because I heard some people outside, and I saw in the window, I saw the other guys wearing a black jacket and black pants, and also they&#x27;re wearing a mask,&quot; Sancio, 27, told Reuters on Wednesday.&quot;They started banging the window of our neighbours so I panicked because I have a daughter inside that house.&quot;The rioters smashed the windows of the couple&#x27;s car that was parked outside the house and set it and a bin on fire, Sancio, who works for Northern Irish bus manufacturer Wrightbus, said.The violence erupted after two 14-year-old boys were arrested and appeared in court, accused of a serious sexual assault on a teenage girl in Ballymena, located 45 km from Belfast.The charges were read via a Romanian interpreter to the boys, whose lawyer told the court that they denied the charge, the BBC reported.There has been sectarian violence in Ballymena in the past. While a 1998 peace deal largely ended three decades of bloodshed between Protestants who want to remain under British rule and Catholics favouring a united Ireland, there is still sporadic violence around Northern Ireland.Sancio said the masked men told them that they were not targeting Filipino people. Nevertheless other Filipino residents put stickers of British and Filipino flags on their doors with a message saying &quot;Filipino lives here&quot; to show they were not Romanian.Union Jack flags regularly fly in the largely pro-British town and Democratic Unionist Party councillor Lawrie Philpott told Reuters some people who usually don&#x27;t fly flags hung Union Jacks outside their homes to show they are local.While around 6 percent of people in Northern Ireland were born abroad, the foreign-born population in Ballymena is in line with the UK average of 16% and includes a relatively large Filipino community.Northern Ireland has been broadly welcoming to migrants but that has ben tested recently, similar to the Republic of Ireland, where unprecedented rioting broke out in Dublin in late 2023 during anti-immigrant protests.Sian Mulholland, a local lawmaker from the Alliance Party, said she was fielding calls from migrant families who in some cases had barricaded themselves into their homes until 0230 on Wednesday morning.&quot;I had been engaging with this community beforehand because the houses they are living in is not fit for purpose. They&#x27;re squolar,&quot; she told Reuters.Sancio&#x27;s wife, Mariel Lei Odi, was working a night shift on Tuesday and returned home fearing for their two-year-old daughter.&quot;When I (came home to) my husband and chatted about what happened last night: (I said) &#x27;my daughter, my daughter, my daughter. What happened?,&quot; she said.Micahel Assuro, who also lived in the house said he and his wife, Jessa Sagarit, came to Northern Ireland just under two years ago to give their family a better life. Sagarit said she feels traumatised from the events.While residents boarded up broken windows and doors amid scorched tarmac near the Filipinos&#x27; home on Larne Street, the group said they are not sure if they will stay in the British-run province.Police said they are braced for more violence on Wednesday.&quot;We feel extreme fear,&quot; Assuro said.<div>(Production: Clodagh Kilcoyne, Bernat Parera)</div>

Philippine native Michael Sancio was awoken at midnight in fear in his home in the Northern Irish town of Ballymena when masked men began banging loudly on windows at the epicentre of two nights of rioting police have condemned as "racist thuggery."

Philippine native Michael Sancio was awoken at midnight in fear in his home in the Northern Irish town of Ballymena when masked men began banging loudly on windows at the epicentre of two nights of rioting police have condemned as "racist thuggery."

Filipino families flee Northern Irish home after night of 'racist thuggery'

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Filipino families flee Northern Irish home after night of 'racist thuggery'

Reuters

Published Jun 12, 2025 10:02 AM PHT

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