A center housing asylum seekers in a town north of Dublin was set on fire this Friday, October 31, in an “atrocious” attack, according to the Irish government.
The Minister of Justice, Jim O’Callaghan, explained that “pyrotechnic objects were thrown” at a center in Drogheda that houses foreigners who have requested protection from the Irish State.
This “caused a fire and endangered the lives (of the occupants),” he explained to X on Saturday, announcing that a police investigation was being carried out. He said the attack, which took place on Friday night, was “a terrible experience for the women and children living there, several of whom were hospitalized.” “Those responsible will face serious consequences,” he warned.
“Investigations to date” indicate that “the fire was deliberately started by one or more unknown persons,” police said in a statement.
“My children were stuck”
One of the residents, a mother of two children aged 8 and 12, learned that her center was on fire while she was at work, she told the Irish Times.
“I left everything and jumped out into the street,” he said. “I saw smoke. My children were trapped upstairs.”
“I saw my daughter… I wanted to go up the ladder to help her, but the firefighters told me ‘no’. They started taking them out one by one. I was screaming. I was crying. I thought: ‘If they die, what am I going to tell the world?'” he continued. “Why would anyone want to murder us? We’ve never caused anyone any trouble.”
The people housed in this center were evacuated. One of them told the Irish Times that until then she had never felt in danger in Ireland. “We never had any reason to worry until this happened. I haven’t slept since Friday,” he said. “I can’t get it out of my head that they could have broken our bedroom window, that they could have thrown something in there.”
Several places attacked in recent months
Prime Minister Micheal Martin also condemned the incident. “Threatening vulnerable families, including young children, is abhorrent and has no place in our society,” he said on X.
This attack comes against a backdrop of growing anti-immigration sentiment in Ireland, where several places hosting asylum seekers have been attacked in recent months.
Several dozen people were arrested in October during several protests, some of them violent, outside a hotel receiving migrants in southwest Dublin.
These protests began after media coverage of an alleged sexual assault on a 10-year-old boy. Local media reported that the 26-year-old suspect was an asylum seeker and that the alleged assault occurred at or near the targeted hotel.
Source: BFM TV
