Four killed in Belfast

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 33063, 2 November 1972, Page 15

Four killed in Belfast

(t<t .Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright)

BELFAST, November 1.

The city of Belfast was “back to normal” today with four persons dead, including two young girls, after a night of bombing and gunfire.

The violence broke two weeks of comparative peace during which there were no major explosions. The calm was shattered by an explosion at a Roman Catholic bar near the city centre last night which killed the girls, aged four and six, who were playing nearby. Twelve adults in and around the bar were injured, none seriously. The girls were playing with a group of children 40 yards from the bar around a bonfire lit to celebrate Halloween a festive night for young and old in Ireland. As the deaths were confirmed, a policeman outside the bar said bitterly “Belfast is back to normal.” Earlier a 17-year-old Roman Catholic youth was shot dead while working at a. service station in a mixed Roman Catholic-Protestant area of the city. A patrolling policeman saw a man leave the service station after shots were fired. He ordered the man to stop and when he continued to flee shot him in the leg. Police said that the man was in possession of a pistol when he was captured. Later a soldier on foot patrol in the Roman Catholic New Lodge area of Belfast was killed by a single shot from a sniper. Other members of the patrol could not spot the gunman and did not return the fire.

Another attempt to bomb a bar in a mixed Roman Catholic - Protestant area failed when guerrillas drove a truck into the entrance of a bar and fled.

Later, they returned and removed a beer keg from the truck, then ran away again. Troops later recovered and

exploded the keg, which the Army estimated contained 1001 b of explosives. The blast damaged buildings hundreds of yards around. The bomb which killed the two girls wrecked Benny’s Bar off Corporation Street, a few blocks from the city centre. One of the injured was a motorist passing by at the time. His car was caught in the blast. Its windows were shattered and it was splattered with blood. There were pools of blood on the street and the pavement outside the bar ana wall was blown out. Pieces of the counter were strewn outside. Leaders of Northern Ireland’s main Roman Catholic party prepared arguments to persuade the British Government to release the remaining 200 suspected guerrillas still interned without trial. The politicians, leaders of the Social Democratic and Labour Party (S.D.L.P.), are expected to appeal to the province’s administrator (Mr William Whitelaw), in a meeting with him today, to “clean the slate” in order to allow political dialogue to take place in a cooler atmosphere.