McGuinness calls for end to UDA threats

Northern Ireland’s Education Minister Martin McGuinness is insisting that loyalist death threats against staff at Catholic schools in North Belfast must be lifted immediately.

The Sinn Fein Minister, who has been involved in talks with unions and management from the North’s education sector, said that schools and all those associated with them must be regarded as "sacred".

As hundreds of police and troops were on duty to protect staff and pupils at schools in North Belfast, Mr McGuinness urged local politicians to try to ease the situation. The Red Hand defenders have issued the chilling death threat to teachers at Catholic schools across Belfast.

"It is absolutely vital that the community gets in behind educationalists of all descriptions, that we respond to this challenge by asking our community, particularly community leaders and politicians to engage in the real work of dialogue," he said.

Meanwhile, at the Holy Cross School on the Ardoyne Road, which has been in the middle of a loyalist protest, parents escorted their young daughters past dozens of armoured police vehicles lining the route. There was also a police presence at Our Lady of Mercy Secondary School, where loyalists destroyed the cars of up to twenty teachers last week.