Man in hospital after being stabbed during bonfire row

A 19-year-old man was in a serious condition in hospital last night after he was stabbed during a row at an Eleventh Night bonfire in west Belfast.

It was one of a number of violent incidents that occurred at the traditional bonfires that are lit the night before the Orange Order's Twelfth of July parades in Northern Ireland.

The PSNI said the man was stabbed during an altercation at the bonfire at Black Mountain Park around 2.30 a.m. yesterday. A 33-year-old man was arrested.

Earlier, at 12.30 a.m., a dark coloured Audi car was driven close to the bonfire at Clara Street in east Belfast. The man in the passenger seat tried to fire a handgun at the crowd gathered around the bonfire, but the gun appeared to jam, it was reported.

The driver then fired a number of shots into the air before driving away. The PSNI are trying to establish whether the shooting arose as a result of a dispute involving loyalist paramilitaries.

In Kilrea, Co Derry, police fired warning shots as they tried to disperse a crowd of about 60 who were fighting in a Twelfth-related incident.

A number of people sustained head injuries during the fighting, which erupted after nationalists objected to Orange Order members flying British union flags in the town centre, according to local sources.