Loyalist paramilitaries have been blamed for a series of sectarian assaults in north Belfast in which four people, two of them teenagers, were injured.
Sinn Fein representatives said they believed the Ulster Defence Association carried out the attacks in the mainly nationalist New Lodge area on Sunday morning. In the most serious attack a woman walking on Spamount Street at 1 a.m. was attacked by men in a silver car. She was treated in hospital for a serious head injury. Her condition was said to be stable last night. About half-an-hour earlier a 14-year-old boy was attacked by men armed with pickaxe handles. The men then drove a short distance along Spamount Street and attacked a man and woman. The boy and the couple were treated in hospital but released.