On a terraced street in north Belfast, two burned-out cars smoulder outside the front door of a migrant resident as she packs up her belongings.
The woman’s daughter is dressed in her primary school uniform, listening to earphones in the spotless livingroom.
Neither has slept following the previous evening’s violence when a gang of masked men set fire to a house facing them, stoned other homes and set cars alight.
The pair hid in a back bedroom and turned off all the lights as they listened to “petrol bombs go off and guys throwing stones” in Oakley Street off the Crumlin Road.
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“We are leaving our home because I don’t know what will happen today, a friend told me they are closing the street at 1pm,” says the woman, who fled El Salvador a year ago.
“We are terrified.”
The attack was among the violent disorder that erupted across Belfast on Tuesday evening following anti-immigrant protests over a knife attack that left a man seriously injured.
“Friends have been calling me the whole night to see if I’m okay. I’ve lived here a year, this is [the] third time there has been an attack,” says the resident, who is “too afraid” to be named.
“I’ve left my own country because of the gangs and cartels. I thought I would be safe here.”
A 30-year-old Sudanese man, Hadi Alodid, has been remanded in custody for four weeks after being charged with attempted murder in relation to Monday’s knife attack.
The family of Stephen Ogilvie, the victim, has appealed for calm in a statement that stressed the “deeply valuable contribution” migrants make.
Extra police – about 200 officers – have been deployed to Belfast to deal with further potential disruption, PSNI Chief Constable Jon Boucher confirmed on Wednesday.
Many schools and businesses closed by noon in the city in advance of further planned protests; by teatime, public transport had stopped.
A neighbour of the Oakley Street resident invites us into his home and shows CCTV footage of the moment masked men smashed the windows of his car.
At one point, there were more than 100 rioters blocking off the street.
“I was in the backyard watching the footage live of them destroying my car,” says the man.
“We packed up our valuables and were getting ready to run last night. We were thinking we would go out the back door and head out the gates. It was scary.”
The resident grew up in India and has lived in Northern Ireland for 25 years. He regards himself as “British”.
“I work full-time and pay my taxes.
“What’s going to happen now? Is everyone of ethnic colour or that sounds different in the shops going to be targeted? It’s ridiculous.”
Another resident expresses his anger at the “senseless” violence that forced his wife and eight-year-old daughter to hide in their bathroom.
“We heard the first smash and then it just took off. They were shouting, ‘get out, get out’. Our little girl had just had a bath and was petrified. We locked her into the bathroom.”
In east Belfast, the pungent stench of smoke lingers in Lendrick Street where houses and cars were torched on Tuesday.
Broken glass is strewn along the narrow footpaths as workmen board up windows throughout Wednesday.
The image of a nine-year-old migrant child being placed in the back of a PSNI Land Rover after being rescued from their home in Lendrick Street was discussed at Westminster on Wednesday.
One UK minister, Ruth Anderson, branded those responsible for attacks as “violent, racist thugs” who left 27 people homeless “because people went door-to-door to try and target foreign nationals”.
A two-month-old baby is the youngest made homeless.
International television camera crews and about a dozen journalists were in Lendrick Street by lunchtime on Wednesday.
Around the corner, a bus hijacked and set alight on the Newtownards Road on Tuesday night has been moved to the side of the road.
A man in his early 20s is staring down at the pavement outside his home on Lendrick Street.
He points to a photograph he took before midnight on his mobile phone showing the street engulfed in flames.
A father of a three-year-old son, he says he wants to move.
“I think it’s best for my child that we go. He plays on this wee pavement here. I don’t want him to grow up in this. It was supposed to be a peaceful protest; there was nothing peaceful about it.”
The east Belfast resident, like other residents in the north of the city, did not want to be named.
Back in north Belfast, a friend of the Oakley Street resident and her daughter has arrived to take them to her home for the evening.
The resident blinks away tears as she puts her bags into the boot of the car.
“We go to the same church, it has an arrangement with accommodation in the city … but we don’t want to say where,” her friend says.
“I think community leaders in the church and youth leaders on the ground can help calm tensions. But the root of this goes much deeper.”
