Two pensioners were left "deeply upset and traumatised" by separate robberies in the south Down area, according to the PSNI this morning.
An 85-year-old man was confronted by four masked men when he answered a knock at his back door, in the St Rita's Park area of Rostrevor, at around 8.15pm last night.
His house was ransacked before the gang made off with his wallet and a sum of cash. The gang left the scene in a dark coloured estate car.
Shortly afterwards a 92-year-old woman sustained minor facial and throat injuries when four men forced their way into her home in the Ashgrove area of Warrenpoint.
"The victim's 62-year-old son came downstairs to find one of the men hand his hands round his mother's throat. "She was attempting to defend herself with a walking stick," a police spokeswoman said.
The pensioner's son pursued the men as they fled and smashed the rear window of their car with a walking stick before they drove off at speed, also in a dark coloured estate car.
The incidents, which are believed to be linked, are the latest in a spate of house raids in Northern Ireland which have targeted the elderly.
Detectives are particularly keen to trace the whereabouts of a dark coloured estate car with damage to the rear windscreen.