As Belfast burned, two Sudanese women braved the streets and sheltered those under attack
Two Sudanese women in Belfast helped evacuate and shelter families targeted in anti-immigrant riots, while police and officials were slow to respond.
Intelligence analysis by GPT-5.4 Mini
As anti-immigrant violence spread through Belfast, Areej Fareh and Twasul Mohammed helped organize evacuations, shelter, and food for targeted families. Their response through the Anaka women’s collective became a local counterweight to the chaos and fear.
Two Sudanese women in Belfast acted like helpers in a storm. When angry crowds attacked people who looked foreign, they helped move families to safer places and fed them in a church, like neighbors sharing a shelter during bad weather.
Analysis
What happened
When masked gangs attacked homes in north Belfast, two Sudanese families were trapped inside as cars and property were burned. The article says the police took about an hour to arrive, and the attackers were targeting people who looked foreign.
How the response formed
Areej Fareh and Twasul Mohammed, friends from university and members of Anaka, a women’s collective in Belfast, had already been thinking about community safety. Once the violence began, they and other women from the collective went into the streets despite petrol bombs and improvised checkpoints. They helped evacuate 12 families on the first night and later used WhatsApp groups, a database of people needing housing, and a list of spare rooms to move about 200 families and individuals.
A refuge in the city
The article describes a church in central Belfast that became a place of refuge for people affected by the riots. Volunteers cooked meals there, and the space functioned as both practical shelter and a statement against the racism behind the attacks.
Why Fareh and Mohammed matter
Fareh and Mohammed are not framed as detached observers. Both were politically active in Sudan against Omar al-Bashir’s government. Fareh says she was arrested and abused by security forces in Khartoum, and she left Sudan after years of repression and fear for her son’s safety. In Belfast, they say they refuse to accept the idea of collective punishment. Mohammed says there are still more good people than bad, while Fareh says she once felt safe in Belfast but now worries whenever she sees unfamiliar men.
The article ends on that tension: solidarity and self-organization have grown, but so has fear, and many displaced families have still not returned home.
Key points
- Masked gangs attacked homes in north Belfast and targeted people who looked foreign.
- Areej Fareh and Twasul Mohammed helped organize evacuations through the Anaka women’s collective.
- The group says it moved about 200 families and individuals using WhatsApp and spare-room networks.
- A church in central Belfast became a refuge where volunteers cooked food for displaced residents.
- Fareh and Mohammed say they do not accept collective punishment, even as they feel less safe than before.
If the volunteer network holds, it could keep more families safe and help people return home. The church shelter and the Anaka collective also show that local solidarity can blunt the harm caused by the violence.
If the attacks continue, more families may be forced out of their homes and remain afraid to return. The article also suggests that slow official response and online targeting could keep the crisis going and deepen distrust.
