Two young men have been injured in a paramilitary-style attack in Belfast. One was shot in the ankles and the other in both the ankles and wrists.
The 18-year-old and 19-year-old were found in the nationalist New Lodge area in the north of the city on Friday night, close to the petrol station where they had been abducted by a gang of up to 15 men on Thursday evening. The local MLA, Mr Alban Maginness (SDLP), has condemned the incident. "It is a chilling reminder of the bad old days when the paramilitaries simply abducted people, kept them overnight, interrogated and tortured them," he said. RUC detectives are not treating the incident as sectarian.
Also at the weekend a Catholic primary school in north Belfast was damaged in a suspected arson attack. The toilet block at Holy Family Primary School in Newington Avenue was burned out on Saturday.
Meanwhile, in Cookstown, Co Tyrone, a crowd of up to 30 people attacked a patient who was in an ambulance outside a restaurant at 2.30 a.m. on Saturday. Mr Billy Newton from the Northern Ireland Ambulance Service said members of the crowd entered the ambulance and punched a woman who was receiving treatment.
A member of the ambulance crew was slightly injured during the incident. Mr Newton said the crew were shocked by the attack. "While they feel none of the anger was directed at them personally, they felt threatened by the situation and also by the fact that the ambulance was damaged," he said.