Family flee second bomb attack

A petrol bomb attack on a house in south Belfast on Wednesday night in which a 10year-old girl was injured was the second time…

A petrol bomb attack on a house in south Belfast on Wednesday night in which a 10year-old girl was injured was the second time the family home had been targeted in a year.

In the latest incident, a petrol bomb apparently intended to land inside the house struck the front door after bricks had been thrown through two front windows.

The mother and four children fled through the back door of the rented house in Delhi Street, near the Ormeau Road, but the girl sustained minor burns to her left hand.

The Catholic family had been waiting for almost a year to be rehoused by the North's Housing Executive following an earlier paint bomb attack.

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Assembly member Mr Alex Maskey of Sinn Fein said loyalists were behind the "blatantly sectarian" petrol bomb attack.

"I am calling on community and unionist leaders in the area to stand with their Catholic neighbours in the face of these attacks coming from within their community," he said.

Meanwhile, in Ballymena, Co Antrim, a petrol bomb caused scorch damage to the exterior of a vacant house in Dunclug Gardens.