Another brutal knife attack has once again unleashed a violent wave of protests in the United Kingdom, in which entire families were forced to flee their homes in terror after hooded men set fire to homes and vehicles in Belfast, the capital of Northern Ireland.

The unrest began on Tuesday, after a video of the previous night's horrific attack on a man with a knife on a Belfast street was widely circulated on social media.

In the video you can see a man kneeling over another, immobilizing him and attacking him in the head and neck with a knife. Moments later, several passersby try to separate him from his victim and they face beatings until the police arrive.

The person accused of the attack was brought to justice this Wednesday. This is Hadi Alodid, a 30-year-old Sudanese refugee, who has been accused of attempted murder.

The victim is a man in his 40s who was stabbed in the eyes, neck and back. He is hospitalized in serious condition and lost an eye.

The incident sparked a series of protests in several cities in Northern Ireland as well as Belfast, including Londonderry, Antrim, Newtownabbey, Ballymena and Bangor.

Although some demonstrations took place peacefully, others led to car and home fires, including attacks in neighborhoods with migrant populations.

The intentional fires affected dozens of vehicles and homes, which have turned several neighborhoods of the Northern Irish capital into an “apocalyptic” scenario, according to BBC correspondent Sara Girvin.

In Belfast, a group of about 100 hooded people kicked down doors and broke windows shouting “foreigners out!” in various parts of the city, both in the east and in the west.

Groups of hooded men set fire to private cars, police vehicles and a bus, and the flames ended up affecting several homes.

“Cars were set on fire in the street, which caused my house to catch fire, while masked men broke down the doors,” a resident of Lendrick Street, east Belfast, told the BBC.

Entire families had to be evacuated from their homes before they were engulfed by the fire, including a two-month-old baby.

Last week, the scandal surrounding the stabbing death of an 18-year-old man in Southampton, who died handcuffed by police while calling for help because he could not breathe, also sparked violent protests in which there was an anti-immigration component.

Encouraged by far-rightists on social networks

As in that case, figures from the British far-right such as Tommy Robinson, rushed to share the video of the attack on X, Elon Musk's social network, calling for people to take to the streets to protest against another attack by an “invader against our people.”

These posts were then reposted by Musk himself to his 240 million followers, with a message: “Only if we protest repeatedly and loudly will there be any change!!”

Last year Northern Ireland witnessed outbreaks of violence against migrants after two minors were accused of sexual assault against another minor.

British political leaders, including Prime Minister Keir Starmer, have called for calm, calling the incidents unacceptable.

“There is no justification for the violence and unrest we have seen threaten our communities, nor for those who have incited it, whether online or elsewhere,” Starmer said in a post on X.

The prime minister added that it was “evident” that people had been attacked because of their origin “and I will not tolerate it,” he said, adding that those behind the violence “will suffer the full weight of the law.”

Michelle O'Neill, the first minister of Northern Ireland, called what she described as "groups of masked men forcing families to abandon their homes by setting them on fire" “genuine barbarism,” she said after the riots broke out.

“The attack in north Belfast was appalling and unacceptable, but there are dangerous attempts to exploit it to attack innocent people,” he added.

The Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service reported that it received 256 calls and had to intervene in 62 incidents on Tuesday afternoon and evening, mostly in the Greater Belfast region.

Terrified families

Dozens of terrified families had to be assisted by security forces when their homes were attacked or threatened by fire.

“Last night we rescued a lot of families,” explained Northern Ireland Police Chief Jon Boutcher on Good Morning Ulster.

“We took the families – including a baby who was just two months old – out of their homes to safety and took them to the police stations.”

The official further stated that "it was not just families from minority ethnic communities, but families from all communities who were involved in this atrocious behavior last night. There is absolutely no excuse for it."

A parish priest who helped affected people in the area said that parishioners of his church “who have been with us for 20 years” were being kicked out of their homes: “I am angry and disappointed that this is the reaction of the people in our community,” Pastor Jack McKee told the BBC.

Among those who had to flee their homes was Yuri, a 19-year-old Ukrainian woman, who described the scenes of the previous night as “terrifying.”

"My neighbor's house was set on fire. So the door to my house was a little affected by the fire. We had to kick it down to stop the fire, because it was about to enter the house," he told the BBC's Sara Girvin.