The police in Derry said yesterday they were treating as sectarian an assault on a 15-year-old Protestant schoolboy in the city centre, reports George Jackson. The youth is a pupil at Faughanvalley High School. Last month, nine boys from the same school were attacked while playing in a cross-community football match in the predominantly Catholic Creggan Estate.
An RUC spokesman said the youth was verbally abused and then beaten and punched and kicked to the ground by his attackers near a bus stop in Foyle Street.
The incident, which has been condemned by unionist and nationalist councillors, has been described as "just the tip of the iceberg" by a local DUP alderman, Mr William Hay.
A Creggan SDLP councillor, Mr Joe Clifford, described the attack as shocking. Meanwhile, a group called Football Unites Not Divides, which is based in Catholic and Protestant areas of both Belfast and Derry, is to host a cross-community youth football competition in Derry tomorrow.