Protesters start fires in Belfast following knife attack

Exactly what was hoped wouldn't happen.Buses and bins burnt out, smoke billowing into the night sky.A road left impassable.And that's not all.Homes came under attack as calls for calm were ignored.This disorder a night on from a brutal and barbaric attack, followed by an act of bravery.

On a residential street on the edge of the city, residents rushed to rescue a man coming under attack before being helped by police.Close to a school, this moment of mayhem has left a community and city stunned.Darren told me about the moment he came face to face with the alleged attacker.What we know about the man charged with attempted murder has become clearer since his arrest.He's Sudanese, in his 30s and today police revealed how he came to be in Northern Ireland.

It's my understanding that the suspect was granted leave to remain in the United Kingdom on the 28th of September of 2023.But I'm informed that he made his way from Sudan to Paris and from Paris he flew to Dublin at a date yet to be determined.He then travelled from Dublin to Belfast by bus on the 10th of February of 2023.and claimed asylum on that date.

Police say a terrorist motivation is being ruled out at this stage.The victim, aged in his 40s, remains in hospital, where he is being treated for significant stabbing injuries, including to his eyes, believed to have been sustained by use of a kitchen knife.Politicians on all sides were quick to condemn the attack and call for calm.

My message today is one of calm and don't allow those people that don't care about people here to incite hatred, to incite fear.Don't allow those people who are faceless to orchestrate campaigns and on the streets.What we need today is calm across Northern Ireland, across our communities.

On a day that politicians and senior police officers called for calm, Well, that hasn't played out in various parts of Northern Ireland.As you can see here, this is one of the main arterial routes that lead into the city centre.As we've been here, cars have been blocked from getting through with bins in place and a small fire still remains alight.Tonight, smoke scars the skyline as appeals ring out for the disorder to stop.Stuart Robson, News at Ten, Belfast.

Well, Geraint is in Belfast tonight.Geraint, apart from the rain, which we can see, what is the situation on the streets around you tonight?

Well, the police described pockets of disorder in various areas around Belfast this evening.Vehicles have been set alight.Police vehicles have been attacked.Where I am, those calls for calm from across the political spectrum have gone unheeded, although the weather might help in that department.The authorities were clearly immediately concerned that what happened last night might lead who were repeated the kind of trouble that we saw in Northern Ireland last summer which was sparked by allegations of wrongdoing by recently arrived immigrants.The police, as we've seen elsewhere in the UK, tried to share as much information as they possibly could about the suspect, even as you saw there down to the mode of transport he used to get from Dublin to Belfast three years ago.

But those attempts to manage the situation have met with only limited success.And just a word about the nature of the violence, Tom.We're talking about crowds of people, 100 to 150 strong, individuals dressed largely in black with their faces covered and their hoods up.They all came out onto the streets at around a similar time this evening.So there's every indication that this disorder is in fact pretty well organised and coordinated.

All right, I think it's time to let you get back undercover, but thank you very much indeed.Well, let's bring all of this to Carl, a man who knows Belfast very well, apart from other things.Obviously, I guess the question here is that we know illegal immigration is something a lot of people watching this programme are very concerned about.We know it's one of the things driving reforms, very high poll ratings.What is the government thinking and saying about days like today?

Yeah, there is a lot of anger about it, isn't there, even though most of it doesn't spill out into the streets as it has done in Belfast.But it's very hard to know what the policy response is going to be when we know so few of the details of this particular case.We do know that this man got travelled from Dublin to Belfast.Now, that border, it has no checks on it.We know that.And we know that successive Tory governments went through extraordinary contortions to keep it that way after Brexit.

So I don't think we'll see changes on the border.But because of the openness, it means immigration enforcement happens away from the border with raids and intelligence -led actions.And I think there will be callsthat to be looked at again.That said, this suspect went through the system.And at the point where the incident he's accused of happened, he was in the country legally.

We don't know the basis for the asylum that he was given.We do know who was in charge of the system at the time.The Home Secretary was Suella Braverman, then Conservative.now of reform, of course.The immigration minister was Robert Jenrick, then a Conservative, now of reform.So this is not just a problem for the current government, although, of course, it is a problem for them as well.

And they will be trying to remind people in the face of another horrific set of images that actually Small boat crossings are down 13%.Net migration overall is down very, very dramatically.And yet, getting people to recognise that in the face of yet another very compelling and horrific video will prove incredibly difficult for them.