PARAMILITARY shootings and assaults have reached an eight-year high - with gun attacks alone up by more than a third in the past year.
Almost 20 years on from the landmark Good Friday Agreement, PSNI statistics show dissident republican and loyalist groups remain involved in violence.
The figures show total of 20 people were shot last year, compared to around 27 so far this year - a 35 per cent increase.
All but three of the attacks have been linked to dissident groups.
In the last week alone, an 18-year-old man was shot in both ankles in west Belfast on December 23 and a man was shot in the leg in Derry on St Stephen's Day.
Police said the teenager's injuries are "potentially life-changing".
On December 7, a 41-year-old was shot in the right ankle near the Creggan shops in Derry.
A total of 94 shootings and assaults were linked to paramilitaries in the first 11 months of this year.
While dissident republicans are far more likely to be involved in shootings - usually in nationalist areas - loyalists are responsible for the vast majority of paramilitary assaults.
Loyalists were behind 55 assaults between January and November, compared to 15 linked to dissidents.
Several of the shootings have centred in the north west.
Last month, a 44-year-old man was forced into a tunnel and shot in the leg in what police described as a "brutal and horrific attack" in Derry on November 12.
Just days earlier, the mother of a 17-year-old shooting victim was assaulted when she attempted to protect her son from being attacked at their home in the city's Bogside.
Sinn Féin Derry councillor Colly Kelly said those responsible were targeting their own communities.
"Residents we would speak to in the Bogside and Creggan are asking why these attacks are increasing," he said.
"No one wants this. These people have no support and no mandate. The talk about the police, calling them the RUC, but these are the people who are bringing the police to our streets. Every time this happens they cause massive disruption. It's happening so often that no one knows who will be next or when. People are just sickened."
SDLP Derry councillor John Boyle said the rise in shootings was "very worrying and very distressing for many people".
"I think that the past has shown that when there's a political vacuum paramilitaries use that to their own advantage," he said.
Mr Boyle said politicians and civil servants need to assess if the PSNI has enough funding to tackle the issue.
"Those responsible must be apprehended," he said.
Although deaths from paramilitary shootings are rare, in 2016 33-year-old father Michael McGibbon died after he was shot several times in an attack in north Belfast later claimed by dissident republican group the 'New IRA'.
