Opinion

Arsonists must be caught

AN ARSON attack in Derry in the early hours of yesterday caused the destruction of a car and the hospitalisation of a man who attempted to put out the blaze in the vehicle. Bad as things turned out the incident could have ended with even more serious consequences.

Members of the emergency services who attended the scene in the Sevenoaks area of the city discovered what is believed to be a gas canister which had been placed in the car before it was set ablaze. If this had exploded before neighbours were evacuated or when the injured person was present the consequences could have been fatal.

To emphasise the intent on causing damage and injury by those responsible, a petrol bomb was also reported to have been thrown at a house.

As it was a car was destroyed, one person was injured and about a dozen neighbours were awoken in the early hours of Sunday morning by the police, evacuated from their homes and had to spend several hours sheltering in the Foyle Arena.

While they wondered what might happen to their homes British army explosives experts carried out an examination of the scene before declaring it save for residents to return several hours later.

As of yesterday there was no clear indication as to who carried out this potentially lethal attack and police are appealing for information to help bring those responsible to justice.

Nationalist and unionist politicians condemned the incident and one pointed that "The entire community wants to live in peace and has a right to do so."

Some might think that expressing that sentiment is stating the obvious. Sadly it is patently not obvious to those who behave in this way. If it was, then they would not have endangered the lives of people, caused damage to their property in this way and forced their evacuation from their homes.

With that in mind it seems obvious that these people will not pay much heed to public appeals and so the only real hope of stopping them from persisting in this type of activity is to help the authorities bring them to justice.