When Frustration is Ignited and The Collective Suffers for it: The Anti-Immigration Riots in Belfast

Police attempting to clear protestors in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Wednesday 10 June 2026. Peter Morrison/Associated Press.

On 9 June 2026, anti-immigration riots broke out across Northern Ireland after footage capturing a horrific knife attack in north Belfast spread rapidly on social media and was subsequently exploited by far-right proponents. 

Hadi Alodid, a 30-year-old Sudanese man who had claimed asylum in the United Kingdom, was arrested at the scene. Alodid has been charged with attempted murder, threatening to kill a second person and carrying a knife. The victim, Stephen Ogilvie, who is in his forties, lost his left eye and suffered deep lacerations to his face, along with injuries to his neck and back. It was the intervention of bystanders that saved Ogilvie. 

Less than 24 hours after footage of the attack was posted and shared across Facebook, X, and TikTok, protests were coordinated online. Social media posts gave times and places for protest, expected road blockages, and directions for business to close by a specific time. A list of addresses believed to be immigrant homes was also circulated on closed social media networks, including WhatsApp. 

Disorder broke out overnight, as hundreds of men dressed in black hoods and masks proceeded to set fire to garbage bins, and burned vehicles and homes in Belfast. They also pelted police with bricks, rocks and other objects. More than two dozen people reportedly lost their homes and 12 police officers were injured. The fire brigade attended 62 incidents across the city. 

Over the next few days protests were reported across Northern Ireland, and in Glasgow and Edinburgh in Scotland, and Southampton in England. 

The unrest following the stabbing reflects broader anti-immigration sentiment that has heightened across the UK and parts of Europe, amidst political debate over asylum seekers, small-boat crossings, pressure on public services, and claims of a “two-tier” policing system that treats ethnic minorities leniently. 

In a statement, Ogilvie’s family said that they do not want this "terrible tragedy to be used to divide people or fuel hostility". They also said: "We have many migrants who make a deeply valuable contribution to our country, including in our healthcare system and hospitality sector and we depend on them to make our country work."

On 10 June, UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer expressed in the Commons that while “people are rightly sickened by the horrific attack on Monday night in north Belfast”, the riots were "totally unjustified”. Reform UK deputy leader Richard Tice also condemned the violence and urged people to express their frustration “peacefully”. However, he maintained that his party’s call for all visas for Sudanese asylum seekers to be banned is “absolute and it is proportionate”. 

Evi Chatzipanagiotidou, a lecturer in anthropology at Queen’s University of Belfast, connects the violence to the sectarian conflict in Northern Ireland, known as the Troubles. Chatzipanagiotidou said to Al Jazeera News that violent riots take place in areas that have been affected by long-term economic deprivation, unemployment and marginalisation. She also explained that anti-immigration sentiment in Northern Ireland is additionally fueled by the UK’s border with Ireland, which is blamed as a passage corridor for migrants, reigniting tensions around national identity between Catholic and nationalist communities. 

Dissatisfaction with the patrolling of the internal Irish border, which runs between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, has also been identified as a reason for anti-immigration sentiment. 

It is this frustration over migration that, to the far-right, rationalises abuse toward immigrant communities. The Belfast stabbing provided yet another prejudicial justification to carry out this abuse. 

Professor Imogen Richards from Deakin University in Melbourne said to SBS News that to some audiences, “the political moment may be constituted by framing rather than the facts of the case.” Consequently, the nationality and migration route of an accused person reads as an immigration issue rather than a criminal matter. 

Donathan L. Brown, Associate Professor of Communication Studies, Northeastern University, writes that by directing fear toward a larger population following the acts of one perpetrator, a violent act can be transformed into collective punishment.