By Braden Keith on SwimSwam
The Larne Swimming Club in Larne, Northern Ireland, has had to suspend practices after the leisure center where they practice was set on fire in an act of vandalism. The program is the home club of 2020 and 2024 Irish Olympian Danielle Hill.
“No child should ever be forced to witness masked men in their home community,” Hill said in an Instagram post. “No child should ever have had to witness the site [sic] of individuals in Balaclavas. Let alone understand the fear such images provoke. Yet, last night they did.
“The local leisure centre is a safe place for so many, from young children (as young as six) learning to swim to elderly residents, has now been transformed into a place marked by fear and trauma.”
Hill decried the attacks, which were a spillover of anti-immigrant disorder in nearby Ballymena, as “racism in its rawest and most dangerous form.”
View this post on InstagramA post shared by Danielle Hill (@danielle_hiill)
The Larne Swimming Club said on June 12 that “all club activities are suspended until further notice,” saying the attacks caused “appalling and unnecessary damage to the Larne Leisure Centre.”
Nearby Ballymena, a town of over 31,000, has seen a week of anti-immigration riots, where masked individuals attacked police and set homes and cars on fire. The flashpoint came after two 14-year old boys were arrested on charges of serious sexual assault of a teenage girl in Ballymena. The two teenagers spoke Romanian and had a Romanian interpreter in court.
On Friday, police said 63 officers were injured in four nights of violence so far. Anti-racism counterprotests have also begun forming.
Read more about the ongoing rioting from the BBC here.Read the full story on SwimSwam: Northern Ireland Anti-Immigration Riots Force Closure of Home Swim Club of Irish Olympian
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