Two injured in separate Belfast shootings

Two men are recovering in hospital after separate paramilitary-style shootings in Belfast

Two men are recovering in hospital after separate paramilitary-style shootings in Belfast. A 17-year-old was shot in the ankle in Seaforde Street after being abducted and questioned in a house in Short Strand. Republican paramilitaries are believed to have been responsible.

A 39-year-old man was stopped by two masked men and shot in the right leg as he walked through Woodvale Park in west Belfast. It is understood the attack was carried out by loyalists.

The shootings were condemned by Mr Vincent McKenna of the Northern Ireland Human Rights Bureau, who blamed the Provisional IRA and the UVF. He said Sinn Fein and the Progressive Unionist Party were "not fit to sit in the corridors of democracy".

Meanwhile, a Protestant family from Dundonald last night fled Northern Ireland after a knife attack believed to have been carried out by the UFF. Ms Joan McCreery accused the UFF of the assault on her teenage son Leon.