Belfast tense after sectarian riot

BELFAST, Northern Ireland -- Sectarian tensions are simmering on the streets of north Belfast after a dispute over a Catholic school again become the focus of clashes between Catholics and Protestants.

Forty-eight policemen and four others were injured in a night of rioting which saw petrol bombs thrown at police and several vehicles set alight in the worst street violence the Northern Irish capital has seen in months.

Politicians and community leaders did what they could to calm passions after the rioting which began on Wednesday near the flashpoint Holy Cross Primary School -- the Catholic school in a Protestant area where school-run demonstrations have shocked the world.

But with the school due to reopen on Friday unless police deem the situation too dangerous, more violence was feared.

"There's huge anger, huge fear, people are saying where do we go from here?" said Father Aidan Troy, chairman of governors at the Catholic girls' school.

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The UK government's Northern Ireland secretary John Reid told CNN the violence was "horrendous" and "a return to the past."

"It is a tragedy for the young children of the area, for the next generation, for the communities themselves and the reputation of everyone in Northern Ireland," he said.

CNN's Matthew Chance reported "tension and anger" with Protestants and Catholics blaming each other for the sudden escalation.

As Holy Cross school's governors were due to meet, rival gangs were gathering on the streets under the watchful eye of riot police.

Police said the violence on Wednesday had been sparked by a fight between a Protestant and a Catholic woman on a Belfast pavement.

On Thursday morning six men, two of them carrying handguns, turned up at Our Lady of Mercy School -- near Holy Cross -- and began smashing about 20 vehicles with crowbars. No injuries were reported and the school remained open but some children were escorted away in tears.

"It's naked sectarianism," Catholic mother-of-two Kate Lagan told Reuters at the school gate. "I'm angry and sickened. Have they not done enough at Holy Cross?"

Police told Reuters that the rioting, which began on Wednesday afternoon and continued into the early hours of Thursday, was "sustained and highly orchestrated," with shadowy paramilitary groups on both sides fuelling the disorder.

Three crates of ready-made petrol bombs were found by police. More than 130 of the weapons were thrown by rioters, along with acid bombs, flares, fireworks, bricks and bottles.

A police armoured vehicle was destroyed by a petrol bomb, and six cars were hijacked and burned. Forty-eight officers were injured and four Catholics were wounded when a gunman opened fire with a shotgun. None was badly hurt.

"The actual outbreak yesterday we think was spontaneous, but in this area, in both communities, once you scratch the surface the paramilitaries are there, and the paramilitaries on both sides were involved," north Belfast's police chief, Assistant Chief Constable Alan McQuillan, told BBC radio.

"Particularly... in the nationalist (Catholic) area we saw clear evidence of people orchestrating the rioting."

In the autumn, Holy Cross school was the target of months of demonstrations by Protestant extremists, who blocked the road and shouted insults at the Catholic schoolgirls and their parents.

"I'm afraid we could be back to square one again," Troy said.