What to know about the stabbing that set off fiery riots in Northern Ireland

LONDON (AP) — A savage knife attack on a Northern Ireland street led to two nights of fiery riots stoked by anti-migrant rhetoric.

The suspect, a 30-year-old Sudanese man who had claimed asylum in the U.K., appeared Wednesday in Belfast Magistrates’ Court on charges of attempted murder, threatening to kill a second person and carrying a knife.

The court appearance came between two nights of fiery violence that first erupted Tuesday when masked men set fire to several homes they believed to house immigrants, torched a Belfast bus and pelted police with rocks and other objects. Firefighters rescued several people from burning homes.

Here are some things to know about the attack and its aftermath:

Video captured the stabbing

Hadi Alodid used a kitchen knife to blind Stephen Ogilvie in the left eye and carved deep wounds on his head, face and back, police said.

As Alodid was being treated for a hand wound, he threatened to kill a radiologist, police said.

“I’ve killed someone, I don’t know if they are dead,” Alodid told medical staff, according to a detective who spoke in court.

Police have not revealed a motive for the attack but said it's not believed to be terrorism.

Alodid refused legal representation through an Arabic interpreter and did not enter a plea. He was ordered held.

Arrest leads to a night of protests and violence

Officials aghast at the crime urged protesters to maintain order and civility but groups dressed in black hoods and masks disregarded that plea and threw bricks, rocks and stones at police, set fire to trash bins, and burned homes and vehicles.

Police blasted water cannons at protesters who hurled bricks and hunks of stone at them that they had torn from garden walls and patios.

More than two dozen people were left homeless by the violence.

Anselme Shima, a Belfast resident originally from Congo, said he saw smoke from burning vehicles near his home.

“I’ve lived on my street for almost 10 years, I have a good relationship with my neighbors, but last night was a horrific one,” he said. “We don’t know what to do. I’m scared. Seeing this, I’m wondering if I’m next.”

Politicians from both parts of Northern Ireland’s power-sharing government condemned the violence. First Minister Michelle O’Neill of Irish nationalist party Sinn Fein called it “thuggery.”

Riots have followed other stabbings in the U.K.

The violence was reminiscent of riots that swept England and parts of Northern Ireland two years ago after a teen killed three girls and seriously wounded 10 other people in a stabbing rampage at a dance class near Liverpool.

The Belfast rioting began a week after protesters clashed with police in Southampton over the sentencing of a man for his conviction in the fatal stabbing of a university student.

All three crimes featured Black or Asian suspects and the victims who were white.

Other factors at play in stirring anger

In the case of the girls killed in Southport in 2024, the suspect — who was not named — was wrongly identified on social media as a Muslim asylum seeker. Even after police said he was a British citizen born in Wales (later revealed to be raised by Christian parents from Rwanda), protests were mostly aimed at migrants and Muslims.

Outrage over the fatal stabbing in Southampton focused on the fact that police who arrived at what had been reported as a racist assault mistook the stabbing victim, Henry Nowak, as the perpetrator. They initially dismissed Nowak's pleas that he had been stabbed and couldn't breathe and handcuffed him as he was dying.

Vickrum Digwa, who was carrying a ceremonial knife worn by Sikhs but used a longer dagger to stab Nowak, misled police when he said Nowak attacked him, Judge William Mousley said in sentencing him to life in prison.

Nigel Farage, leader of the anti-immigration Reform UK party, said Nowak's killing was an example of so-called two-tier policing — a popular far-right talking point that suggests ethnic minorities are better treated than white people.

Government officials and police have denied such a bias exists and many experts say policing in Britain favors white people. A report three years ago found the Metropolitan Police in London, the largest force in the U.K., was riven with institutional racism.

Anti-immigrant and far-right capitalize on crimes to drive agenda

Protesters have been called to action on social media by U.K. far-right activists, including Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, also known as Tommy Robinson, and rallied by influential international figures including tech mogul Elon Musk.

Musk tweeted more than 100 times about British politics with a strong focus on Nowak's killing around the time of Digwa's trial and offered to bankroll a private prosecution of the local police force.

U.S. Vice President JD Vance, in a post on X, blamed Nowak's killing on “the mass invasion of migrants, many of whom despise the West and the people who love it.”

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer snapped back at Musk and Vance, criticizing people “trying to interfere in our democracy and seeking to stir up division on our streets.”

Reaction to the stabbings reflects a broader rise in anti-immigrant sentiment in parts of the U.K. and Europe in recent years, fueled by political debate over asylum seekers, small-boat crossings and pressure on public services.

Politicians blame open border between Ireland and Northern Ireland

Some political figures pointed to the largely open border between Northern Ireland, which is part of the U.K., and the Republic of Ireland, where the suspect arrived in Dublin from Paris before heading north.

Allowing the free flow of people is a major pillar of the peace process that largely ended decades of violence known as “The Troubles.” The conflict involving Irish Republican and British Loyalist militants and U.K. security forces left almost 3,600 people dead before a 1998 peace accord.

“There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that this man should not have been in this country,” Farage said Wednesday. “He entered the country illegally. And is it any surprise that people in Belfast and elsewhere are scared?”