W2C-002 Belfast Telegraph 2-4.txt
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Burnt Out

Emergency talks were being held at Stormont today after another night of violence in which two Roman Catholic families were burned out of their homes in Armagh.

SDLP and Alliance delegations were meeting Security Minister Sir John Wheeler after loyalist paramilitaries targeted houses in the predominantly nationalist Legarhill Park estate, near Callanbridge, late last night.

An elderly couple and a family with four young children were forced to leave their homes after eight petrol bombs were thrown at four houses.

UVF and Red Hand Commando graffiti, sprayed on the walls of the houses in Armagh, warned that the attackers would return.

Mother-of-four Anita O'Hagan, whose home was damaged, said her family was lucky to be alive.

She, her husband Philip and children aged 11, 9, 7 and 5, spent the night at a friend's home.
"I keep thinking of how lucky my daughter was. One of the bombs hit her bedroom window but did not go off.
"It was just sheer panic. We just raced upstairs to get the kids out. The house was full of petrol fumes and I really did not know what was happening.

Dread

"I don't feel at all great about returning. Now we have the added dread of knowing they will come back. But where else can you go to live? Would you feel any safer anywhere these days?" she said.

Her next-door-neighbours, 82-year-old Noel McKeown, and his wife, Austin, also 82, were rescued from their burning home by neigh-bours

The couple, who had lived in the area for 22 years - and on whose wall the RHC daubed "RHC. We will be back. UVF" - were today staying with relatives and too upset to talk to reporters.

Ethna Donnelly, whose home escaped damage when a firebomb exploded at the front door, said they had been targeted because of their religion.

"The whole estate is living in fear. I am so angry with them. If they could only see what they did to that elderly couple," she said.

Police have appealed for anyone who was in the Legarhill Park area between 11.15pm and 11.45pm yesterday to contact them on Armagh 523311.

The attacks are believed to have been in retaliation for the IRA bomb attack in Armagh town centre on Thursday night which caused damage estimated at £ 2.5m.

They came at the end of a week which saw the UFF and UVF kill four people in Belfast - three Roman Catholic civilians and a Protestant prison officer.

Fears were mounting today that loyalist paramilitaries are intent on extending their campaign of violence to other parts of the province.

Fear

Alliance leader, Dr John Alderdice, said he had warned the Security minister that reintroducing internment would be "counter productive".

After an hour-long meeting, Dr Alderdice said: "He was certainly concerned to hear what we had to say. There were a number of important issues to discuss."

The Armagh attacks were the most sinister in a wave of arson incidents over the weekend.

Police are treating as malicious a fire discovered at a temporary chapel at High Street, Holywood, at 1.15am today. Scorch damage was caused to an outer wall.

Poured

Minor scorch damage was caused to a house at Grove Street, Lisburn, when a flammable liquid was poured through the letter box at 11.15pm. Three people were in the house at the time.

A fire badly damaged St Peter's Presbyterian hall, Stewartstown Road, west Belfast, early yesterday morning.

Lisburn Sinn Fein councillor Annie Armstrong said the people responsible had done "a grave diservice to the nationalist community."

And children are believed to have started a fire which destroyed Craigy Hill Presbyterian church in Larne on Saturday night.
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