Anti-immigration protests have broken out in Belfast, Northern Ireland, after a knife attack allegedly perpetrated by a Sudanese refugee left the country on edge.

Hundreds of protesters, many masked, blocked roads and torched cars and buildings on Tuesday evening as residents were evacuated.

Michelle O’Neill, the first minister of Northern Ireland, described the riots as “nothing less than disgusting cowardice”. “Racism, intimidation and violence are wrong wherever they occur,” she said on X.

The 30-year-old suspect in the knife attack, whose name has not been released, was charged with attempted murder, possession of a bladed weapon in a public place and making threats to kill after he repeatedly slashed a man in his 40s in the head and neck on Monday.

Northern Ireland police chief Jon Boutcher said the suspect had arrived in the United Kingdom in 2023 via Paris and Dublin. The UK Home Office confirmed he was a Sudanese refugee with a legal residence permit valid until 2028.

The latest bout of violence comes as tensions remain high across Britain, with populist parties accusing the asylum policy of allowing dangerous men into the country.

Violent skirmishes broke out last week in Southampton, southern England, over the police handling of the murder of a young white student stabbed to death by a British Sikh man. On Tuesday, dozens of demonstrators also gathered there outside a hotel housing asylum seekers, carrying banners reading “no racism, just patriotism” and “enough is enough”.

Racist attacks on the rise in Northern Ireland

Immigration has become a hot-button issue in Britain, and helped stoke the rise of the hard-right Reform UK party in recent municipal polls.

There was anti-immigrant rioting in Northern ‌Ireland last year amid anger over an alleged sexual assault involving two teenagers described as being of foreign origin. The site of the clashes was the city of Ballymena, in Northern Ireland, where groups of protesters targeted houses where migrants live.

The UK was also roiled by violence in July 2024 following the killing of three little girls who were stabbed near Liverpool by a British 17-year-old son of Rwandan refugees – an event that back then led to riots, even in Northern Ireland. The teenager pleaded guilty to charges of murdering the girls and was sentenced to life in prison, with a minimum of 52 years.

In November last year, Amnesty International described the 12 months prior as “a shameful year of hate” in Northern Ireland. Police services documented 2,048 racist incidents and 1,280 race hate crimes in that timeframe, one of the highest levels recorded since records began in 2004.

Four of the five highest monthly levels of race hate incidents were recorded between June and September 2025. “Behind every shocking statistic, there is a real person or family left living in fear,” Patrick Corrigan, Amnesty International’s Northern Ireland director, said at the time.

“Yet too many politicians have echoed anti-migrant misinformation that provides the backdrop to these attacks, rather than stand with the victims of hate crimes.”

Michael Kerr, professor of conflict studies at King’s College London, said that while the number of rioters involved has been relatively small, the consequences are potentially very serious.

“A small but determined far-right minority can create fear very quickly, especially when they are targeting communities that are themselves tiny, vulnerable and already exposed,” Kerr told Al Jazeera.

“That makes the attacks even more disturbing. It is not the expression of some large democratic grievance; it is racist intimidation directed at people who have very little power.”

Far right stokes tensions

Anti-immigration figures, including Reform party leader Nigel Farage and Restore Britain leader Rupert Lowe, have demanded details about the immigration status of Monday’s attacker. Gavin Robinson, the leader of the Democratic Unionist Party, urged authorities to curb “uncontrolled immigration”.

Boutcher said that the alleged attacker was not known previously to the Police Service of Northern Ireland — suggesting that he had no history of major crimes.

While police urged people not to share the graphic video of the stabbing, numerous social media accounts linked to so-called “patriots” were sharing the footage, urging people to “protest against mass immigration into their communities”.

American tech billionaire Elon Musk retweeted a post by anti-immigration activist Tommy Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, saying: “Only by protesting REPEATEDLY and LOUDLY will there be any change!!”.

Last week’s stabbing in Southampton, allegedly by a British member of the Sikh community, was seized on by US Vice President JD Vance, who blamed the “politics of self-hatred and the mass invasion of migrants” for the violence. British government officials noted the assailant in Southampton was not an immigrant and accused Vance of trying to “interfere in our democracy and seeking to stir up division on our streets”.

The Sikh community has since reported episodes of racial and verbal abuse, despite Mark Nowak, the victim’s grieving father, warning against his son’s death being used to create “further division, hatred or tension”.

Northern Ireland Justice Minister Naomi Long on Wednesday said those carrying out violent acts were “weaponising genuine hurt, concern and anger” among the people and blamed far-right online agitators for stoking racial tension.

“There have been bad faith actors in the UK and further afield who probably would’ve struggled before yesterday to find Belfast on a map … who were deliberately encouraging people to take to the streets,” she told BBC Breakfast. “That is the absolute definition of racism.”

Kerr, at King’s College, said the amplification of anti-migrant material on platforms such as X, has helped create a context in which incidents can be rapidly politicised and used to inflame anger. “That does not mean every participant is formally organised by the far right, but the ideological framing is clearly being shaped by that wider ecosystem,” he said.

Legacy of the Troubles

Evi Chatzipanagiotidou, a lecturer in anthropology at Queen’s University of Belfast, said Tuesday’s violence also connects to the Troubles, as the sectarian conflict in Northern Ireland between the 1960s and the late 1990s is known. The 1998 peace accord, known as the Good Friday Agreement, resulted in governing pacts between the biggest parties of Nationalists (those who want a united Ireland) and Unionists (those who want to remain part of the UK).

Violent riots take place in areas that have been affected by long-term economic deprivation, unemployment and marginalisation. Chatzipanagiotidou said.

“There hasn’t been an established connection yet of the riots to [far-right] paramilitaries but the young men who participate in these riots would have been prime recruitment targets of such groups,” Chatzipanagiotidou said.

“So local historical and ideological processes converge with global far-right politics.”

She added that in the anti-migration narrative, the border with Ireland is blamed as a passage corridor for migrants, reigniting tensions around national identity between Catholic and nationalist communities, who identify strongly as Irish in favour of a united Ireland, and Protestant and unionist communities who identify as British and wish to remain in the UK.

Kerr, at King’s College, also pointed to political divisions within the power-sharing executive as a further danger. Without political unity, “the far right can use these incidents to drive a wedge between parties, communities and the police,” he said.

“If this continues, it will become a major policing challenge in Northern Ireland and could feed into wider unrest across the UK.”