“These are scenes that we have not seen for decades,” says the police chief

Eleven police cars, three buses, a tram and thirteen stores seriously damaged or destroyed; a seriously injured police officer. For hours in the Irish capital, Dublin, dozens of unleashed far-right activists clashed with the police on the night of Thursday to Friday, November 24. Riots after a knife attack in the afternoon which left five injured, including three children.

The majority of the rioters were angry with the refugees. They accuse one of them of being the author of the stabbings in front of a school. The police quickly ruled out any terrorist motive and no official information was provided on the identity or nationality of the attacker who was arrested. “These people claim to defend Irish nationals”, “they endanger” THE “more innocent and vulnerable”, Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar declared to the press on Friday, November 24. “They are a shame to Dublin, a shame to Ireland, a shame to their families and themselves.”

“Many individuals are well known to our services, they have criminal records.”

Drew Harris, Director General of Dublin Police

in a statement to the press

The night of violence that followed left its mark on Police Director General Drew Harris. “These are scenes we haven’t seen in decades. What is clear is that people have become radicalized by looking at social media and the internethe explains. We have literally thousands of hours of surveillance video to review (…) We are now entering a lengthy investigative process to bring them to court.”explains the police officer.

The police have already arrested 34 people. She specifies that rioters, demanding immediate justice, disrupted the work of investigators at the scene of the knife attacks. The attacker was arrested thanks in particular to the intervention of a Deliveroo deliveryman, a Brazilian immigrant.