Furniture belonging to five Polish people has ended up on a loyalist bonfire in Londonderry, it has emerged. It followed the stabbing of a Polish man at the same house on the Fountain Estate a day earlier on Saturday.


The Polish Welfare Association denied claims that the occupants of the house, had been involved in a rowdy party.

A settee and fridge freezer were among items on the bonfire. Community leaders in the estate condemned the attack.

Speaking on Wednesday, Katrina Kordula of the Polish Welfare Association said it was fortunate that the two married couples and a single man had left the house at the time.

“Thankfully we had the members of the house removed by four o’clock that afternoon,” she said.

“There’s no doubt in our mind that if they had been in the house that evening, we could have been looking at a murder investigation.”

‘Ashamed’

Fountain estate resident William Jackson said he felt ashamed.

“No matter what happens down that other end (of the estate), if it has been put around that it’s from the Fountain, everybody gets branded the same,” he said.

“I totally condemn it – it shouldn’t have happened.”

On Saturday morning, a gang called at the house occupied by the Poles and stabbed a man in the leg. He also suffered a cut to his hand.

Police said a racial motive for the attack was one line of inquiry.

The next day at about 1600 BST, most of the furniture was taken from the house in a burglary and ended up on the bonfire.