In the past week, Belfast’s streets saw groups of masked men set houses on fire, burn vehicles, and break down doors, targeting mostly Black people. Over two dozen people were left homeless and a dozen police officers were hurt.Northern Ireland Secretary Hilary Benn described what happened as “racist thuggery”. One knife attack set it all off, but the anger behind it had been building for years. Here’s what unfolded in Northern Ireland’s capital and why.On Monday evening (June 8), a 30-year-old Sudanese man named Hadi Alodid attacked a man named Stephen Ogilvie on a street in Belfast. Alodid used a kitchen knife, leaving Ogilvie blind in one eye, with serious wounds to his head, face, and back. Someone filmed the incident, and it spread fast.Police have not identified the motive for the attack. Alodid, who was arrested the same evening, was charged with attempted murder and carrying a knife, among other offences.Northern Ireland’s police chief, Jon Boutcher, told reporters that Alodid had arrived in the United Kingdom (which comprises England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland) in 2023, travelling from Sudan via Paris and Dublin. The Home Office confirmed he was a recognised refugee, with legal permission to stay in the UK until 2028.Ogilvie’s family put out a statement through police asking people to stay calm, saying the violence on the streets was not something they supported and that peaceful protest was the only acceptable response.After Alodid’s arrest, people began gathering and what followed was anti-immigrant violence. BBC reported one local resident saying men in masks bashed down doors, while the Belfast Telegraph reported petrol bombs being thrown at police. Around 100 masked people, many of them teenagers, moved through east Belfast, breaking windows, and forcing their way into homes.Story continues below this adThe fire service dealt with 62 call-outs between 7 pm and midnight, with engines from across Northern Ireland being called in to cope. A pastor from the area told BBC that people were being driven out of their homes simply because they were Black.A Sudanese refugee named Twasul Mohammed, who spent that night helping displaced families, told BBC that addresses of Sudanese, Somali, Syrian, and Eritrean families had been posted on social media, and everyone was terrified.Also read | Belfast riots: Why Elon Musk’s X won’t face immediate action over violent postsThere was more violence the following day, though smaller in scale. Police used water cannons against crowds outside Belfast. Two officers in the nearby town of Carrickfergus were hurt by fire bombs. Similar gatherings were also reported in Bangor, Glasgow, and London.First Minister of Northern Ireland Michelle O’Neill called what happened as “disgusting cowardice”, and said burning families out of their homes had nothing to do with the community. “Racism, intimidation and violence are wrong wherever they occur,” she said on X.Story continues below this adUK Prime Minister Keir Starmer said the scenes were completely unacceptable and made clear that people had been targeted because of who they were.Justice Minister of Northern Ireland, Naomi Long, pointed the finger at far-right figures online. She told BBC that people were being attacked based on their skin and termed it racism.‘A shameful year’Belfast is not a one-time event. Just last week, unrest occurred in Southampton after a British Sikh man was convicted of stabbing a university student to death. The Sikh community has faced abuse ever since, even though the victim’s own father asked the public not to use his son’s death to spread hate.NewsletterFollow our daily newsletter so you never miss anything important. On Wednesday, we answer readers' questions.SubscribeLast year, riots broke out in Ballymena after claims of a sexual assault involving teenagers described as foreign nationals. At that time, houses of migrants were targeted as well.Story continues below this adAl Jazeera reported that Amnesty International, in November 2025, described the previous 12 months as “a shameful year of hate” in Northern Ireland, with police recording over 2,000 racist incidents and nearly 1,300 race hate crimes, which was among the highest figures since records began in 2004.Memories of the “Troubles”For roughly three decades, from the late 1960s until 1998, Northern Ireland was torn apart by a conflict called the “Troubles”. Irish nationalists, mostly Catholic, wanted a united Ireland. British unionists, mostly Protestant, wanted to stay part of the UK.The conflict killed nearly 3,600 people before the 1998 Good Friday Agreement established a fragile peace based on power-sharing. It also created an open border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.Evi Chatzipanagiotidou, a lecturer in anthropology at Queen’s University Belfast, told Al Jazeera that the riot is connected to the Troubles and that they happen at places with high unemployment, deep poverty and that the young men on those streets are exactly whom far-right groups recruit. “Local historical and ideological processes converge with global far-right politics,” she said.Story continues below this adThe author, Abhishek Nair, is an intern with the Explained Desk.