The scenes of loyalist protest at a north Belfast Catholic school have appalled the world, South African peace campaigner Archbishop Desmond Tutu declared today.
The Nobel Peace laureate offered to try to help resolve the long running dispute during a visit to the city.
As he did so a war of words between the two sides erupted after another day of angry scenes as Catholic parents took their children to Holy Cross Primary School in Ardoyne, again running the gauntlet of loyalist demonstrators under RUC guard.
Loyalist protesters accused nationalists of failing to respond to a scaling down of the protest which began yesterday, and Father Aiden Troy, chairman of the school governors at Holy Cross, complained to the RUC that Catholic parents had been pushed off the pavement outside the school by police.
At a Belfast news conference ahead of delivering a lecture on Human Rights Archbishop Tutu said he was ready to offer help, if asked, to try to resolve the long-running inter-community dispute which has seen protest - and often violence - every day since the start of the school term at the beginning of September.
He said he was "very deeply distressed, especially for the children".
The pupils should not be used as "pawns and hostages".
The Archbishop added: " I would hope that both sides might be able to find a way of resolving a very, very distressing situation. People around the world are appalled as they see the images on television. How can people have got themselves to such a stage?
"We are trying to see whether there is anything one can do to promote reconciliation and a resolution of a very distressing situation."
But the 'distressing situation' continued with both sides on the offensive - albeit verbally not violently.
A spokesman for the loyalist Concerned Residents of Upper Ardoyne expressed "despair and disbelief" at nationalists’ negative reaction to a scaling down of the protest.
"Everyone saw yesterday's developments as positive, and all we asked for was a positive response from the Nationalist community.
"We are disappointed that instead we got an escalation, with two crowds instead of one, face to face provocation and eventually Nationalists attacked the police when residents refused to get involved," he said.
Father Troy, meanwhile ,said he was complaining to police "right at the top" about RUC behaviour which he said involved pushing parents of the Catholic children off the pavement outside the school.
He wanted to see senior officers to "see what we can do to restore some form of dignity to this situation in which we are being treated as absolute dirt."
In another move Catholic parents at the centre of the dispute launched a website to highlight their plight and demands for the loyalist protest to end.
Under the headline 'Child Abuse at Holy Cross' it tells how "vulnerable children in Belfast are now the targets of a small group of racial/sectarian bigots who gather on a daily basis to inflict physical, verbal and emotional abuse upon them."
PA