Teen killed in N. Ireland violence

British soldiers come under attack from petrol bombs in north Belfast on Sunday.

BELFAST, Northern Ireland (CNN) -- Police in Belfast have been struggling to quell clashes between Protestants and Catholics after the death of a young demonstrator.

The rival factions threw petrol bombs at each other on Sunday night, setting police and civilian vehicles on fire.

The fighting escalated after a 16-year-old Protestant boy was killed when a device, said by police to be a pipe bomb, exploded in his hand.

An 11-year-old boy was also treated in hospital for a leg injury which it was claimed he sustained from being hit by one of nine plastic baton rounds fired by officers, a police spokesman said in a statement.

Twenty-four police officers, two soldiers and two civilians were injured as more than 50 petrol bombs, blast bombs, paint bombs and other missiles were thrown during the rioting.

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The violence erupted after police moved in to separate a crowd of Prostestants, who want to remain within the United Kingdom, from Roman Catholics, who want a united Irish republic.

"A man wearing a distinctive top and a mask came running through the loyalist crowd and was seen to be raising a fizzing object into a throwing position," a police spokesman said.

"Before he could throw the object, it exploded." The teenager died in hospital from severe head and arm wounds.

The spokesman said the incident had been witnessed by a number of officers near the scene and police were satisfied that the device had not been thrown by the nationalist Catholic crowd.

The optimism that followed last month's agreement by the Irish Republican Army to decomission some of its weapons has failed to quell the rancour between Protestants and Catholics that has haunted Northern Ireland for generations.