Belfast – The family of a man who lost an eye in a knife attack has appealed for calm after the incident triggered a wave of anti-immigrant violence across Belfast, with masked men burning families out of their homes and setting vehicles alight.
The appeal came as a Sudanese man appeared in court charged with attempted murder, and as British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and politicians in Northern Ireland condemned what they described as violence by “masked thugs” targeting ethnic minorities.
“We want to make it absolutely clear that overnight unrest is not welcome, and peaceful protest is the only way forward,” the family of the victim, Stephen Ogilvie, said in a statement. 
“We have many migrants who make a deeply valuable contribution to our country. We do not want this terrible tragedy to be used to divide people or fuel hostility,” the family added.
The suspect, a 30-year-old Sudanese national named as Hadi Alodid, appeared in court on Wednesday and was remanded in custody. Ogilvie, who is in his 40s, suffered significant injuries to his face and back, the court heard.
Police clashed with protesters for a second night on Wednesday, deploying water cannon and armoured vehicles against a few dozen young men hurling bricks and fireworks to the north of Belfast. The unrest was significantly less than Tuesday evening, after video of the knife attack went viral online and sparked calls for violent protest on social media.
Police had to help one family escape from a burning house. Several cars and a bus were set on fire and reduced to shells. Local politicians and a pastor said many of those targeted were Black.
Local resident Jamie Corry, 33, described watching helplessly as his house burned.
“I was actually standing right there watching my whole house just go up, slowly but surely,” he told Reuters. “I told them and all, when they were lighting a car up on fire, that’s my property, that’s my property… and they still didn’t care.”
Northern Ireland’s First Minister Michelle O’Neill described the violence as “nothing less than disgusting cowardice.”
Speaking in parliament in London, Starmer said the attack raised serious questions but that “driving people out of their homes is not the right way to respond.”
Northern Ireland’s Justice Minister Naomi Long told Reuters that “bad faith actors” who would have previously struggled to find the province on a map had sought to weaponise people’s understandable fear and anger over the knife attack to target those who had the same skin colour as the assailant.
Belfast pastor Jack McKee told the BBC that some members of his church, who had lived in Belfast for 20 years, were “getting put out (of their homes) just because they’re Black.”
Amid calls from tech billionaire Elon Musk, anti-immigrant activist Tommy Robinson and others for more protests on Wednesday, Northern Ireland’s police chief said an extra 200 officers were being deployed on the streets.
“These idiots didn’t just target ethnic minority groups… they targeted society,” Chief Constable Jon Boutcher said of Tuesday night’s rioters.
The knife attack, which is not being treated as terrorism, comes at a time of heightened tensions in Britain following the murder of a student who was handcuffed by police as he lay dying from stab wounds after his killer falsely alleged a racist attack.
According to the 2021 census, 96.6% of those living in Northern Ireland were white, while police statistics showed the number of racist incidents reached a record level in 2025. Northern Ireland was also hit by anti-immigrant rioting last year amid anger over an alleged sexual assault, though charges against two boys were later withdrawn by prosecutors.
