The Church of Ireland Bishop of Derry and Raphoe has appealed to Derry's Catholic majority to help preserve community life in the only Protestant housing estate on the west bank area of the city.
Bishop James Mehaffey made the appeal yesterday after he visited the Fountain estate with the Dean of Derry, Very Rev William Morton.
A dossier containing information on more than 100 attacks on the estate since January is to be presented to the North's Security Minister, Ms Jane Kennedy, on September 26th.
The attacks include an incident last week, in which a 14year-old girl was splashed with petrol when a device was thrown into the estate.
Following that attack, the RUC erected security fences around the estate.
"The residents here are very concerned about recent happenings and there seems to be an ongoing problem in terms of bottles and stones being thrown into the Fountain and indeed, more recently, petrol bombs," said Bishop Mehaffey.
"I would ask the trouble-makers to stop and think for a moment. Both communities here need each other. Nobody can live in isolation.
"I believe the Roman Catholic people of the surrounding streets here want to live in total peace with the people of the Fountain. They too have suffered and they and the Fountain residents should work together for the good of both.
"We all feel at times mentally and emotionally isolated if we live in a minority community, but minority communities have always existed and have made a great contribution to the wider community.
"The majority community also needs to welcome the minority. The people who surround this community here, the Roman Catholic community and the nationalist community, have a responsibility to reach out in a special way to them and give them encouragement and say, `We want you to live here, we don't want you to leave, we want you here with us because you are as part of this city as we are'," he said.
A Fountain community worker, Mr William Temple, who compiled the dossier, said he would be presenting it to the Security Minister later this month.