Three RUC men were injured by a pipe bomb yesterday before police and troops formed a protective corridor for nationalist children they were escorting to their north Belfast school for the second day in a row.
As many as 45 children and parents were escorted by 500 RUC officers and British soldiers to the Holy Cross girls' primary school on Ardoyne Road, behind a double wall of riot shields and vehicles.
In confrontations before the pupils were brought to the school, police and soldiers mounted baton charges against Protestant residents. A pipe bomb was thrown at the RUC, injuring three officers, one of whom suffered a broken collar bone.
In one incident RUC officers forcibly cleared a group of about 50 men standing in a garden overlooking the route. In the short but violent confrontation that followed, poles and a length of fence were hurled at the police.
As the pupils were brought along upper Ardoyne Road Protestant residents hurled insults and some stones. Neither the stones nor the insults were launched with the same levels of intensity as the day before, due mostly to the fact that the security forces had pushed residents back farther than on Monday.
The school said 121 pupils attended class yesterday, the majority seemingly having come in via the back of a neighbouring school.
Parents and nationalist politicians expressed a degree of satisfaction with the security operation but called on loyalists to end their protest.
Sinn Fein's north Belfast Assemblyman, Mr Gerry Kelly, insisted that the security operation was not a solution.
He said parents "do not want the RUC or British army to escort them to school. What they want is the people who are involved in this blockade to withdraw. People have the right to walk into the front door of their house and it's the same here."
Mr Alban Maginness, the SDLP MLA for the area, said: "It's a relief that the children are through with as little hassle as possible in very difficult circumstances and that creates a situation in which we can perhaps make more progress to end the problem."
Unionist politicians in the area, however, said the actions of the RUC and British army had severely damaged any hopes there might have been of reaching a solution.
Mr Nelson McCausland, the DUP councillor for the area, accused police of needlessly attacking protesters in the garden when he and Mr Nigel Dodds, the area's MP, could have controlled them.
"The police were actively saying `come on, come on' and egging them on," he said. "Any chance of an early resolution is gone, and every day this goes on increases that."
Mr Dodds said "there was no attempt to sit back, it was just wading straight in there and I think that sort of incident and that sort of approach just sets back the prospect of getting something sorted out here."
An RUC spokesman said he believed an appropriate amount of force was used in the operation. "Yesterday morning there was a serious amount of abuse from that garden and that was the only correct decision that could have been made." He pointed to the discovery of hundreds of bottles, petrol and rags ready for use as petrol bombs.
Later about eight children and their parents were escorted out of the school by riot police and taken back down Ardoyne Road. Many other parents had taken their children out through the school's back door.