U.K. officials hope to avoid a repeat of last summer’s anti-immigrant violence.
DUBLIN — Northern Ireland leaders appealed for calm Tuesday after police said a Sudanese man was arrested on suspicion of stabbing and seriously wounding a man in north Belfast.
Public fury over the episode — fanned by widespread sharing of social media posts showing parts of the attack and its aftermath — threatens to trigger renewed anti-immigrant intimidation along the lines previously experienced in Northern Ireland last summer.
In London, Prime Minister Keir Starmer described the attack as “sickening.” He said his government has “absolutely no tolerance for abhorrent scenes of violence like this on our streets.”
His secretary of state for Northern Ireland, Hilary Benn, told the Commons he’d contacted the region’s police commander, Chief Constable Jon Boutcher, to discuss ways of deterring anti-immigrant violence.
Benn said the Police Service of Northern Ireland would work hard to maintain public security against those “who will wish to use this terrible event to stir up trouble and to seek disorder on the streets.”
“I say that because we have seen it before,” he said, referring to the June 2025 rioting focused on Ballymena, northwest of Belfast, after Romanian youths there were accused of a sexual assault. “We do not wish to see it again.”
The victim, identified as a north Belfast man in his 40s, was in serious condition Tuesday in the city’s Royal Victoria Hospital with knife wounds to the face, neck and back.
Police said they were questioning the suspect, a Sudanese immigrant in his 30s. Northern Irish assistant police chief Ryan Henderson told reporters Tuesday afternoon that suspect is thought to be on a leave-to-remain visa after arriving from Dublin.
Police added Tuesday that the suspect claims to have arrived in Belfast from Dublin in February 2023 via bus. He is said to have reached Dublin via a flight from Paris and is said to have reached Paris via a flight from Sudan. He claimed asylum the same day he arrived in Northern Ireland and was granted leave to remain in September 2023.
The Home Office confirmed the broad dates Tuesday evening and said the suspect has leave to remain until 2028.
At Stormont, the leaders of Northern Ireland’s cross-community government issued a joint appeal for calm. Justice Minister Naomi Long urged the public “to stay cool and allow the police to do their job of investigation.”
“I understand some people will be frightened. Some people will be angry. But we need to have calm heads,” she said.
Assistant Chief Constable Ryan Henderson appealed for people not to share footage of the attack online — a seemingly futile hope, given that “North Belfast” was the top topic trending locally on Elon Musk’s X. Prominent anti-immigrant activists on that platform shared footage of the attack alongside calls for mass deportations.
Emilio Casalicchio contributed reporting.