BELFAST HOUSING QUARREL Many camp on football ground

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 32971, 18 July 1972, Page 15

BELFAST HOUSING QUARREL Many camp on football ground

(N .Z .P.A.-Reuter—Copyright)

BELFAST, July 17.

Thousands of Roman Catholics were camped early today at a local football ground after marching angrily out of their beleaguered housing estate.

The Lenadoon estate, during the last week, has been the scene of bitter clashes between troops and Roman Catholic civilians. On Thursday, the Army moved in force to crush further attempts by gunmen to overrun a military post there. They occupied unused buildings and established roof-top gun posts.

Yesterday, more than 2000 people, many mothers pushing prams, formed a long procession, headed by a Roman Catholic priest, which marched to the football ground. They said that the presence of the soldiers would cause street gun battles and endanger their lives. Only the old and the sick were left in Lenadoon as night fell, and they kept indoors leaving only British troops and a few vigilantes to patrol the deserted streets. Many of the evacuees said yesterday that they were determined to remain at the sports ground until the troops were withdrawn. Others, fearful of returning to the estate where hundreds of bullets have flown in the last few days, took refuge with friends or voluntary hosts.

Protests were made to Mr Paul Channon, a Minister of

State for Northern Ireland under the Administrator, Mr William Whitelaw. He promised to study the situation carefully. Many hundreds of Roman Catholics in other parts of the city piled their belongings on to trucks and headed for the Irish Republic yesterday, sfed up with the con-

tinued shooting and bombing which followed the recent breakdown of the Irish Republican Army (I.RA.) truce. The LR.A. again used its American-made bazooka rocket-launcher though the warhead failed to explode properly and caused only

minor damage to a police station.

Two shops were blasted in the market town of Kilrea and, in the south of the province, two British soldiers died when a mine exploded under their patrol car. In Strabane on the north-western border with the republic early today, troops were stoned and a timber yard was set on fire. In sporadic shooting incidents during the night, the Army said that at least one gunman and possibly two had been hit.

Most of the firing took place in the Bone, a Roman Catholic area in north Belfast. Gunmen fired more than 100 rounds, an Army spokesman said. In the Lenadoon area, three gunmen ran off when the Army spotted them and opened fire.