No repeat of violence at Holy Cross Primary School

There was no repeat of this morning's violence as the security forces swamped the route taken by parents as they collected their children from the Holy Cross Primary School in north Belfast.

Elaine Burns emerged from the security cordons with her eight-year-old daughter Leona, having made it past loyalist protesters, relieved but still bitter.

She said: ‘‘It’s still terrifying after what we went through this morning, we have managed to get down without them trying to murder the kids, because that’s what they tried to do earlier.’’

Mrs Burns said she was not going to go back up the Ardoyne Road after the blast-bomb attack, but her husband managed to persuade her.

‘‘It’s like a corridor and we are being shepherded into a Nazi concentration camp,’’ she explained.

The leader of the nationalist SDLP today welcomed Progressive Unionist Assemblyman Billy Hutchinson’s criticism of those who had thrown the device, saying it was ‘‘very clear, tough talk’’ from the North Belfast MLA.

The former Nobel Peace Prize winner added: ‘‘I would like to see all of the public representatives on the unionist side coming together and unanimously declaring that and unanimously, completely and absolutely condemning.

‘‘It’s quite clear that the people behind this are up to something. They obviously are not only doing these terrible things to the children but they are out to provoke other people to come into the retaliation business.’’

Mr Hume, who was in Strasbourg on European Parliament business, urged the protesters to think about the impact the violence was having on Northern Ireland’s image around the world.