The conflict in Northern Ireland has claimed its 1,000th victim. The milestone has been reached amid a spate of killings and shootings over the past two days.
They culminated in the death earlier today of a petrol station owner James Murphy in County Fermanagh. The body of Mr Murphy, a Roman Catholic, was found dumped on a roadside verge by a motorist. He had been shot in the chest at close range.
Yesterday another Catholic was also shot dead. James Corbett, 20, was driven away from his home on the outskirts of Belfast by two men. The body of Mr Corbett, whose widow is expecting their first child, was thrown from the car shortly afterwards with two bullet wounds to the head.
Later on Saturday county court judge Garrett McGrath was seriously wounded by two gunmen at his weekend cottage in County Antrim. And at about the same time in Newtownbutler, County Fermanagh, an elderly man and a police officer were seriously injured in a loyalist car bomb attack.
The device containing 800 lbs of explosive was one of the largest ever to be detonated in Northern Ireland. The murders and attacks came as the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Michael Ramsey, visited Belfast – his second trip during the Troubles in Northern Ireland.
On Sunday during a sermon at St Anne’s Cathedral Dr Ramsey called for peace between the two communities. But he was interrupted several times by hecklers believed to be supporters of the Reverend Ian Paisley.
Courtesy BBC News
In context
By the time of the Good Friday peace agreement in 1998 more than 3,000 people had died as a result of the conflict in Northern Ireland. However, the agreement did not bring an end to the killing.
In August 1998, 29 people died when a bomb exploded in the town of Omagh.
The device was planted by an IRA splinter group opposed to the peace deal. The agreement has also come close to collapse several times, particularly over the pace of IRA weapons decommissioning.
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