Racially Motivated Violence Sparks Fear in Belizean Immigrants

Tonight, fear is gripping immigrant communities in Ireland, including Belizeans, after a disturbing outbreak of racially motivated violence. What began as a peaceful vigil in support of a young assault victim quickly spiraled into chaos over the weekend. Following the arraignment of two teenage boys of Romanian descent, anti-foreigner vigilantes hijacked the demonstration, unleashing a string of violent attacks. Homes were vandalized with fireworks, bricks, and even homemade bombs. Some buildings were burned to the ground, targeting neighborhoods with large ethnic minority populations. Among those affected are Belizeans living in Ireland. We spoke with Melvin Flores, a Belizean who’s called Ireland home for the past twenty years, to get a firsthand account of what’s happening on the ground.

 

Melvin Flores, Belizean Living in Ireland

“ I’m not afraid. I’m concerned because, I’m still an active member in the media. I’m a media researcher, so I spend a lot of time researching stuff. But for me to go out there and document what’s happening, I’m putting myself at risk because I’m gonna be targeted as one of those other people. So it has gotten so bad that immigrants were here, they have to had put, have to be placing on their doors we are Filipinos or we are not, or we are not Romanians or we are English, so that their house is not gonna be attacked. The population of immigrants living in Northern Ireland who have made space their home. It’s only about, it’s only about three point four percent of the immigrants here. So we are the extreme minority. So it’s a mixed place that there’s there’s people from China, which is approximately 9nine thousand five hundred  people. People from other parts of mixed ethnic groups, which is from fourteen thousand four hundred people of Indian descendants. About eleven thousand  and Belize lies on the case of the maybe zero point something percent. But we are here. Unfortunately, that because this perpetration has been done, committed recently, it’s about foreigners. So do we lie we in the category here, like here I have a, I have my wife, I have my son, and it’s like they make you vigilant. They make you want to very vigilant of where you are. What do you say? Because of the repercussion of what could happen if you’re in the wrong place.”