Three families were forced to flee their homes in Belfast yesterday after being subjected to what police believe to be racially motivated attacks.
The two Chinese families and one of African descent were targeted by a gang in the south of the city. In one of the incidents in the Lower Donegall Road, the gang burst into a house and assaulted two pregnant Chinese women, one of whom is expecting her baby on Christmas Day.
A man in the house was battered in the face with a brick and suffered a broken nose and other facial injuries.
Bricks were thrown through the windows of two other houses in the area soon afterwards.
Police said the occupants of all the houses, some with young children, had now left their homes for their own safety.
Insp Keith Gilchrist condemned the attacks and said the woman due to give birth at Christmas had been taken into hospital suffering from trauma.
"She is very heavily pregnant and was was taken in for observation but we believe everything is OK with the baby at the moment," he said.
"It's absolutely horrific that people have been put out of their homes at this time of year. We're having to seek temporary accommodation with the assistance of social services."
SDLP Assembly member for south Belfast, Ms Carmel Hanna, who is also a member of the Chinese Welfare Association, said she was sickened by the attacks, which she said were not the first of their kind in the area.
"Unfortunately, it's not the first attack - there have been several attacks in the past on African and Chinese families living in this area," she said.
"We have some very sick people in our society - some very sectarian and some very racist people."
Ms Nathalie Calyron of the Multicultural Resource Centre in Belfast said the attacks were deeply disturbing.
"It must be awful for the people who were attacked last night," she said.
"I hope they're not people who've just arrived and I hope they have some sort of support network and friends.