Northern Ireland clashes leave 56 police, 2 civilians injured

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Northern Ireland clashes leave 56 police, 2 civilians injured

People walk past a burning car after loyalist protesters attacked the police with bricks and bottles as they waited for a republican parade to make its way through Belfast City Centre, August 9, 2013. REUTERS-Cathal McNaughton

BELFAST | Sat Aug 10, 2013 7:01am EDT

(Reuters) - Fifty-six police officers and two civilians were injured in protests in central Belfast, authorities said on Saturday, following the latest flare-up in violence stoked by tensions between Northern Ireland's Protestant and Catholic communities.

Many of the injuries were minor, but four officers were taken to hospital after the clashes late on Friday, during which police fired plastic bullets and water cannon after being pelted with missiles for a second successive night.

Belfast remains divided between pro-British Protestants and Catholics who generally favor unification with Ireland, despite a 1998 peace and power-sharing deal that put an end to the worst of the so-called "troubles" in the British province.

"Last night's violence and attacks on police officers were shameful," Britain's minister for Northern Ireland, Theresa Villiers, said in a statement. "Disorder on the streets is a hugely regrettable step backwards."

Protestants had opposed a march on Friday evening along the city's main thoroughfare - Royal Avenue - by the nationalist side of the community, and when police moved in to clear them, they threw bricks, bottles and fireworks.

Burnt out cars and rubble littered central Belfast and shop fronts were damaged, as the cleanup work began on Saturday.

The Catholic parade, marking the anniversary of the 1971 introduction of internment without trial by British authorities, eventually had to pass along a different route.

Forty-two years ago, soldiers swept into Catholic districts and arrested more than 340 people as the British government sought to halt growing Irish Republican Army (IRA) violence aimed at extinguishing rule from London.

In all, more than 3,600 people died in a sectarian conflict that began in the late 1960s, including more than 1,000 members of the British security forces. More than 36,000 were injured.

(Reporting by Ian Graham; Writing by Sam Cage; Editing by Mike Collett-White)