Four Belfast Catholic families have been forced to flee their homes after sectarian threats.
They have been living in a social housing project which is supposed to be a flagship cross-community development. People of various religions live there.
One of those who fled said police had visited his home on Tuesday night, telling the family they were being threatened.
He says the police explained they had information that Catholics were unwelcome in the area. They advised the family faced violence if they did not leave.
Until then, the family say they had enjoyed living in the area and got on well with their neighbours. They say feel “stunned” by the threats, which seem to have come “out of nowhere”.
Sinn Féin says the threats came from the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF), a loyalist paramilitary group.
The Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) says the paramilitary link to the threats is a “very clear line of enquiry”.
They would not speculate on who was behind the threats, although a spokesman says: “Whoever it is clearly has no regard whatsoever for what the people of east Belfast want in terms a community that can work effectively together and without division.
“We want to work with the residents in that area to make sure this doesn’t happen again.”
He denied police had asked the families to leave their homes, adding that the job of the police was to “keep them safe”.
The sinister threats have left other residents wondering if the cross-community scheme was too ambitious.
“It’s primitive [the hatred of Catholics] – it’s like saying people with blue eyes have to get out but people with brown eyes can stay,” a Catholic tenant who lost a relative in a UVF bomb says.
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