Last night, a man in his 40s was attacked in a Belfast street in what bystanders described as an attempted beheading.
Police were called to Kinnaird Avenue in north Belfast shortly after 10.30pm. The PSNI has confirmed that a man in his 30s, reported to be Sudanese, has been arrested on suspicion of attempted murder. Assistant Chief Constable Ryan Henderson announced at a press conference this afternoon that the suspect is believed to have been given leave to remain in Northern Ireland in September 2023. He is thought to have travelled from Sudan to Paris, and then from Paris to Dublin, before taking a bus to Belfast in February 2023, when he immediately claimed asylum.
The victim of the attack suffered significant injuries to his face, neck and back, and remains in hospital in a serious condition.
But the footage of the incident circulating online tells the public that this was something far more horrific than suggested by the bare police account, or by the news headlines reporting it as just another “stabbing”. In the video, the attacker can be seen trying to decapitate his victim. And bystanders can be heard shouting that the attacker was “trying to cut his head off”, before brave members of the public intervened to beat the Sudanese assailant with a hurley stick.
As Reform UK leader Nigel Farage wrote on X this morning: “What happened in Belfast last night is horrific. The authorities must reveal the identity and status of the attacker immediately. The public are entitled to the truth.”
Reform UK Deputy Leader Richard Tice echoed this sentiment on TalkTV today when he said: “We’re not stupid. We’ve got eyes. We’ve got ears. We know what’s going on, and we can tell when information is being withheld from us.”
Similar calls for clarity have come from within Northern Ireland itself. DUP leader Gavin Robinson described the attack as the “medieval, barbaric and systematic mutilation of an individual in Belfast”. He said the PSNI must “speak clearly” and give details to a public that is “rightly concerned”.
We now know that the PSNI believe the suspect is Sudanese. But there will no doubt be plenty more information that is either being withheld or will be later revealed. As many will remember from the Southport murders committed by Axel Rudakubana and the subsequent UK riots in summer 2024, there is a real cost to creating an information vacuum around cases like these.
The authorities must come clean about what they know - who this suspect is, how he got here, and whether he was already known to the authorities. After an attack this horrific, the public deserve the truth.
Police were called to Kinnaird Avenue in north Belfast shortly after 10.30pm. The PSNI has confirmed that a man in his 30s, reported to be Sudanese, has been arrested on suspicion of attempted murder. Assistant Chief Constable Ryan Henderson announced at a press conference this afternoon that the suspect is believed to have been given leave to remain in Northern Ireland in September 2023. He is thought to have travelled from Sudan to Paris, and then from Paris to Dublin, before taking a bus to Belfast in February 2023, when he immediately claimed asylum.
The victim of the attack suffered significant injuries to his face, neck and back, and remains in hospital in a serious condition.
But the footage of the incident circulating online tells the public that this was something far more horrific than suggested by the bare police account, or by the news headlines reporting it as just another “stabbing”. In the video, the attacker can be seen trying to decapitate his victim. And bystanders can be heard shouting that the attacker was “trying to cut his head off”, before brave members of the public intervened to beat the Sudanese assailant with a hurley stick.
As Reform UK leader Nigel Farage wrote on X this morning: “What happened in Belfast last night is horrific. The authorities must reveal the identity and status of the attacker immediately. The public are entitled to the truth.”
Reform UK Deputy Leader Richard Tice echoed this sentiment on TalkTV today when he said: “We’re not stupid. We’ve got eyes. We’ve got ears. We know what’s going on, and we can tell when information is being withheld from us.”
Similar calls for clarity have come from within Northern Ireland itself. DUP leader Gavin Robinson described the attack as the “medieval, barbaric and systematic mutilation of an individual in Belfast”. He said the PSNI must “speak clearly” and give details to a public that is “rightly concerned”.
We now know that the PSNI believe the suspect is Sudanese. But there will no doubt be plenty more information that is either being withheld or will be later revealed. As many will remember from the Southport murders committed by Axel Rudakubana and the subsequent UK riots in summer 2024, there is a real cost to creating an information vacuum around cases like these.
The authorities must come clean about what they know - who this suspect is, how he got here, and whether he was already known to the authorities. After an attack this horrific, the public deserve the truth.
