Two shot in paramilitary attacks

Two men have been shot in the North in attacks on their homes.

At the same time, a couple – one Catholic and the other Protestant – living together on the edge of a loyalist estate, were ordered to leave their home.

A 42-year-old man was recovering in hospital after he was shot and beaten by a gang of up to 13 men in Strabane, Co Tyrone in what police said bore all the hallmarks of a paramilitary attack.

The gang forced their way into the man’s home in the Carlton Drive area of the mainly nationalist town and shot him in each elbow and each knee.

He was also battered around the head and suffered cuts and bruises.

Meanwhile, a 39-year-old man suffered a single shot to the leg in the loyalist Shankill Road area of Belfast in another paramilitary attack.

In Larne, Co Antrim, a man said he and his girlfriend were ordered to get out of their home by a masked gunman who broke in.

Windows were shattered in the front and back of the house on the Upper Carncastle Road, on the edge of the loyalist Craigyhill estate.

The man said he was watching TV when he and the mother of four were ordered out. “There was a knock on the door and the next minute the door came in,” he said.

“The man came in, he was dressed all in black and wearing a balaclava, and shouted ’Get down, get down’ and put the gun to my head and to my girlfriend’s.”

The man, too scared to give his name, added: “He said we had 24 hours to get out of Larne“.