BELFAST, Northern Ireland, Aug. 21 (UPI) -- Sectarian violence erupted this weekend in Northern Ireland with about 400 nationalists and loyalists rioting in Belfast.
Crowds, about evenly divided between Catholics and Protestants, raged for about 8 hours through East Belfast, the BBC reported. The trouble appears to have been sparked by a parade in the area and a football game between the Rangers and Celtics.
One man received a head injury and was treated in a hospital.
Protestant and Catholic neighborhoods in the area have long been separated by a "peace wall."
Several politicians blamed police for a tardy response. Michael Copeland, an Ulster Unionist assembly member, said the army should have been called in.
Deborah Devenney of the Sinn Fein Party said the Catholic area of Short Strand had been enduring loyalist attacks for a week.
"I would urge unionist politicians to contact me, try to work something out, that we can get some sort of a settlement here that people don't have to go through this," she said.
