Sinn Fein challenges UDA to say if it is on ceasefire

Sinn Fein has challenged the UDA to declare whether it remains on ceasefire, following further attacks by loyalists on homes …

Sinn Fein has challenged the UDA to declare whether it remains on ceasefire, following further attacks by loyalists on homes in Larne and Carrickfergus, Co Antrim.

The UDA is understood to have been responsible. Five houses in Larne and three in Carrickfergus were attacked early yesterday. Sinn Fein also demanded that the Ulster Democratic Party, the UDA's political wing, state whether it still supports the Belfast Agreement.

Mr Gerry Kelly, a Sinn Fein Assembly member, denied UDP claims that nationalists were also attacking Protestant homes. "We are not witnessing a series of `tit-for-tat' attacks as some have reported," he said.

"What we are seeing is a well-organised and orchestrated attempt to raise tensions and create conditions for attacks on Catholics. The UDP has long claimed to support the Good Friday agreement which includes the right of people to live free from sectarian harassment.

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"It is appropriate to challenge the leadership of the UDP to where exactly they now stand regarding support for the agreement. If they still support it, they must state so clearly and move immediately to halt the attacks which have spread from Belfast into north and east Antrim."

A Larne couple yesterday said they were planning to leave their home after it was attacked. The couple, a Catholic and a Protestant, were asleep in their Cairngorn Drive home when a paving slab was hurled through the living-room window.

The 25-year-old woman said she feared for her life and she and her boyfriend planned to leave. "We were scared around the Twelfth because we thought something might happen then.

"The only reason we were singled out is because we are a mixed couple," she said. "I've grown up in Larne and I don't want to leave but we have no other choice."

Four other houses in the town were attacked. A house on Kintyre Road was stoned and paint-bombed, and windows were smashed in houses in Argyll View, Garron Walk and Fanad Walk. The RUC found bottles of paint in the area of Doric Drive and Hampton Crescent. A local SDLP representative, Mr Danny O'Connor, whose brother's house was attacked with a crossbow, said: "These attacks have got to stop. The people carrying them out are achieving nothing other than to stir up sectarian tension."

Meanwhile, three houses were attacked in Carrickfergus. A Protestant woman and her four children escaped injury when bricks and paint were thrown at their home on Copeland Road. Loyalists are believed to have been responsible.

Her husband said his wife was absolutely terrified. "We are Protestant but we chose to send our children to an integrated school. That is the only reason I can think why we were targeted," he said.

A house at Glebe Walk was stoned and paint-bombed, and in the Northlands area a man was struck by a rock thrown through his living-room window.

The area's Ulster Unionist Assembly member, Mr Roy Beggs jnr, said the attacks must stop.

"They serve absolutely no purpose and do nothing to further any particular cause. The situation throughout Northern Ireland, with nightly attacks, has the potential to spiral out of control. They must end before someone is seriously injured or loses their life," he said.