A list of Belfast addresses of so-called migrant homes circulated online during the riots following the stabbing

Address lists of suspected immigrants and their families shared online amid violent anti-immigration protests riots in and around Northern Ireland’s capital Belfast this week.

The unrest was caused by a brutal knife attack on Monday. The attack, a gruesome video of which was widely shared online, sparked two nights of unrest in the streets of Belfast, with groups of often masked rioters setting fire to homes, a bus and rubbish cans, and pelting police with stones and blocking roads.

CBS News learned Thursday that a list of addresses believed to be immigrant homes, including families, has been circulated online among people seeking mass protests. A copy of the list obtained online by CBS News, which was circulated on closed social networks such as WhatsApp, includes more than a dozen addresses in Belfast.

In another example, an account on X shared on Wednesday morning a list of seven names and addresses of so-called immigration lawyers and law firms in Northern Ireland, urging “fans” to “do what you love.”

After her union reported that a nurse who was going to work at an Ulster hospital was being chased by masked men, senior health and social care officials in Northern Ireland said in a joint statement on Wednesday that some international workers were feeling scared and “too scared to come to work.”

Because of the privacy afforded by the closed social media used to distribute the lists, CBS News was unable to determine how many people shared the information, or who its originator was.

The Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) said in a statement on Wednesday that it was aware that some social media users were sharing addresses online amid the protests.

“Highlighting buildings in this way is completely unacceptable,” the PSNI said, adding that it had received calls from families, landlords and neighbors who were “deeply distressed by this careless work.”

On Monday, the UK Member of Parliament for Belfast condemned the unrest in his home city as “a race pogrom.”

Claire Hanna, a member of the Social Democratic & Labor Party, told the BBC’s “Newsnight” program that protesters were going door-to-door looking for immigrants.

“Groups of masked men who burn families outside their homes are disgusting cowardice,” he said.

The suspect in this stabbing incident is a 30-year-old Sudanese man who had sought asylum in the United Kingdom. He was charged with attempted murder, threatening to kill and possession of a knife. The man entered Northern Ireland after applying for asylum, and in 2023, he was granted a five-year visa to stay in the UK.

A graphic video of the incident shows the assailant guarding the victim on the ground while cutting his head and neck with a knife, which has been widely described as an attempt to decapitate him. The citizens intervened before the police arrived after a while, and they are said to be the ones who saved the man’s life.

The video quickly spread online and prominent people – including Elon Musk and British politician Nigel Farage, President Trump’s ally – were among those to share it and call for mass protests.

Hanna, a Belfast lawmaker, named Musk, Farage and British far-right activist Tommy Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, as some of the “bad actors on the internet and politicians in the area who really don’t care what the communities of north Belfast have been through,” saying they were fueling the unrest online.

CBS News has yet to see any evidence of those prominent people sharing the mailing list online.

The police said that the suspect used a kitchen knife when he attacked the victim and he was blinded in his left eye and left with deep wounds on his head, face and back. The PSNI said the cause of the knife attack was not yet known. The investigation is ongoing, but they say it is not believed to be terrorism.

The riots in Belfast came just a week after separate anti-immigrant protests in Southampton, in southern England. for the murder of college student Henry Nowak.

Nowak, who was white, was killed in December by Vickrum Digwa, a British-born Sikh, who lied to police that he was the victim of Nowak’s racial abuse.

When the police arrived, they initially treated the injured Nowak as a suspect before seeing his injuries and trying to help him. He died of his injuries, and despite Digawa’s British nationality, far-right activists and some politicians cited the case as an example of “two-class” police, meaning that White Britons were treated differently.

The police department involved in the incident denied the allegations, but violent protests broke out, fueled by calls on the internet to protest against immigrants.