Bus hijacked and set on fire near Northern Ireland loyalist estate

London: A bus has been hijacked and set on fire at a loyalist estate on the outskirts of Belfast. Four masked men boarded the double decker in Church Road at an entrance to the Rathcoole estate in Newtownabbey, north of Belfast in Co Antrim, at about 7:45 pm (1945 GMT) and ordered the driver and passengers off. The bus was then set alight across the road. The charred remnants of the bus were still smouldering later on Sunday night as police in armoured vehicles monitored the scene. Last Monday a bus was hijacked and burned in a loyalist area of Newtownards, Co Down, in an apparent protest against the Northern Ireland Protocol, the part of the Brexit divorce deal which avoided a hard border between Ireland and Northern Ireland. Disorder also broke out at a community interface in west Belfast twice last week. The violence involving youths from the nationalist Springfield Road and loyalist Shankill Road saw police being attacked with missiles and fireworks on Wednesday and Friday night. (DPA)