2 Indian families racially attacked in Northern Ireland

LONDON: Two Indian families in Northern Ireland have been forced to relocate to another part of the city Portadown after becoming the target of racist attacks.

One of the two families, which hails from Kerala, includes two children. They were targeted in what the local police described as hate crimes in the Killicomaine area.

The father, who did not want to be identified, is a care worker in a residential home. He was at home with his children when a downstairs window at the front of the house was smashed just before midnight.

His wife, a nurse at the Craigavon Area Hospital, was on night duty at the time of the recent attack, reports from Portadown said.

In another incident in the same town, three windows were broken in a home occupied by an Indian family. The house was vacated over the weekend and police believe the two incidents were caused by the same people.

"We were upstairs at the time and a stone smashed through the window. We cannot understand it. We came here from the state of Kerala in South India for a better life and we found most people friendly. But now we cannot stay in this house. It was very frightening," he told the local media.